Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  “Yeah, to ask you to see if you could also get the Churchburrow to tell us what happened to the child.”

  “No,” Lewis said, never taking his eyes off his work.

  Mike turned to leave. “Guess we do it your way then, Keelan.”

  Keelan followed. “Looks like it.”

  “Oh, wait, hands off the joystick, pal!” Lewis gave them his full attention.

  “It’s the only way left to us, Lewis. They get visits from earlier foster children, right?”

  “Probably,” Keelan said, even though he doubted it, but he mimicked Mike as asked. He wasn’t sure about Mike’s plan, though, as Lewis seemed more than displeased, and Keelan was more than happy about what the man had already done for him. Biting the hand that was giving him his freedom didn’t seem productive.

  “Yeah, and like Lewis said, they’d probably want to keep it a secret—”

  “No,” Lewis said.

  “Wouldn’t look good for the Disciples of the Fallen that the kids fornicate and get pregnant under their care,” Keelan said.

  “Exactly,” Mike said. “Lewis, they wouldn’t tell anyone abo—”

  “No! You’re...” Lewis got up and sighed heavily. “Nothing but trouble. Get to sector seven and... I’ll have a look.”

  “Thank you, Lewis,” Mike said, turned, and smiled theatrically at Keelan. Lewis pulled a face and plopped down onto his chair.

  Keelan stared at Mike as the door closed behind them. “How long have you two known each other?”

  “Long enough for him to know that troublemakers of this magnitude would do it, too.”

  “It’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Yes, Keelan, it is. You’ll just kill someone.”

  “No faith!” Keelan exclaimed, trying to look affronted.

  “Of course I trust you, but to change a planet’s rotation on its axis isn’t possible either. That’s how it’s made, and that’s how you’re made.”

  Keelan stopped. “I didn’t choose to become a murderer.”

  “No, I didn’t say that.” Mike looked unhappy about his own choice of words. “Your survival instinct is just in constant overdrive.”

  “Constant overdrive?”

  “Yeah, you know, like highly developed. Tuned.”

  “Aha,” Keelan mumbled and began walking again. Mike took him through the many corridors of Spec Edit five, and they ended up in a room that smelled like a hospital where the physician and three other people worked around two dentist-like chairs.

  “Come in, sit down,” the physician said. “Keelan, take off your shirt and sit here. Mike, the same and there.”

  They did, and the physician injected Mike with something. He fell asleep almost immediately. The physician turned to Keelan with another syringe.

  “Is that the same stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “So you sit still while I remove that.” The physician poked his rap sheet.

  Keelan glanced at the physician who didn’t seem to care—he just injected Keelan impatiently.

  “Aw!”

  “Wimp.”

  Keelan drew a breath to say something, but everything went dark.

  When Keelan came to, it was to a burning sensation on his arm and a foul smell of burned flesh. He shivered and pulled a face.

  “Did you burn it off?” he exclaimed and discovered that he was alone—with the exception of Mike, who was still out. Keelan tried to lift the gauze a bit but was surprised at finding a lot missing under it.

  Mike moved. “Jeez, what a stench. What is that?”

  “Me, apparently,” Keelan said. “He burned it off.”

  The physician came in. “Awake so soon. Good. Mike, I need you on your stomach on this examination table.” He patted the surface and sat, finding equipment.

  “What now?”

  “Need to take a look at your back.”

  Mike got up, but needed help from the physician.

  “How much did you take off my arm?” Keelan asked and looked at the gaze again.

  “Most of your skin. Tomorrow we regenerate it. Do you need a painkiller?”

  “No,” Keelan growled and watched the physician treat Mike.

  They both stayed the night in the medical wing. Both in pain, but they did watch a few movies.

  Early next morning, the physician came in to unwrap Keelan’s arm. The stench of burned meat oozed out as the bandage fell away, and Keelan counted himself lucky that he hadn’t had breakfast yet. But he also saw just how extensive the burn was.

  “Are those my muscle fibers where there’s supposed to be skin?”

  “Yes.” The physician ran an orange light over it. “We got almost all of the ink. I’ll go back in for it once we healed some of it up again.” The physician got comfortable on a stool with wheels under it and prepared a table with medical tools. “This is going to sting a bit.” He commenced by injecting something around the edges of the burned area, but that didn’t sting.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m a wimp.”

  “I’ve seen worse.” The physician pushed a button on a little pen that began humming. He pointed it at the burned area, and Keelan jerked.

  “A little?” he managed lock-jawed.

  “Wimp,” Mike said, chuckling.

  The physician continued unmoved.

  “Sadist,” Keelan mumbled, not knowing whether the physician heard him over the hum or not. “What is that thing?”

  “It’s a dermatological regenerator.”

  “And how does it work?” Keelan hoped that chitchatting could keep his mind off the burning hell on his shoulder.

  “The liquid I injected makes your cells react like stem cells. They boost your cell production, which I then control with this pen. After six or so treatments, your shoulder should be good as new.”

  “Nifty.”

  “This one is superficial. We have others that can work deeper, like on Mike’s back and on his shoulder. But the injury in his back lies deep, so I have to open him up every time. That’s why he still has a scar. That’s the last thing I remove.”

  “Can you remove all the... chronic... disability?”

  “Sequela,” the physician offered. “It’s always easier to destroy something than it is to fix something. But we hope so. It’s rough on the body and takes a long time. A very long time. Longer than to destroy it.”

  “I got it!” Keelan mumbled.

  The door opened, and Lewis stopped in the doorway.

  “Physician. They’re ready for you.”

  “Coming.” The physician let another take on the task of regenerating Keelan’s arm. Keelan rested his head on the pillow and smiled at the good news—if he even dared hope that they could one day fix Mike.

  A pained scream made Keelan snap to attention.

  “What was that?”

  “The physician at work,” Mike said.

  “What, he wasn’t when he was patching me up?”

  “Well, yeah, but his rounds in the medical wing are more like a second job. He’s hired as the lead interrogator.”

  Another scream sounded.

  “Sweet,” Keelan mumbled. “Why can we hear it?”

  “Because sometimes they need to be patched up. Which the physician takes care of, too, before he continues the interrogation.”

  “How can you be friends with a man like that?”

  “Hey, you tried to murder me, and look where we are.”

  “Tusch.”

  “It’s touché, Keelan,” Mike said, laughing.

  “Yeah, well, when you read a word in a book, you’re not told how to pronounce it, are you.”

  “Oh, that’s right. The only thing missing is your educational papers. Any ideas?”

  “Weapons maker?”

  “Seriously.”

  “It’s all I know.”

  “Well, we know you’re a fast study, so maybe you should just pick a subject for an education?”

  Keelan glared at hi
m. “Could you see me in a classroom? No, I didn’t think so.”

  “Ever hear of distance education?”

  “Yeah, through a safety glass. That’s how classes were conducted in juvie. We weren’t allowed to rough up the teacher.”

  Mike laughed long and hard. “Isn’t there anything you’d like to learn?”

  Keelan considered Mike’s question. “Yeah. In Irgang I shared a cell with a guy named Jasper. Just for six months or so, but he told me a lot about his job. He was a shipping engineer. I’d like to be able to fix ships and stuff.”

  “Why only six months?”

  “Someone killed him. I was gone ten minutes, tops. He was the one who introduced me to the concept of a cheese platter.”

  “We have to do that again, soon. But the fixing ships? We can arrange that.”

  “That, or I want to be a crop farmer in the Frontiers,” Keelan said, grinning.

  “So? Lewis said to keep low. That should be possible out there.”

  Keelan looked at Mike, who suddenly looked serious.

  “You want to?”

  “I don’t know,” Keelan muttered. “I have so many new rules to learn.”

  “Rules?”

  “Yeah, you know. The ones you’re supposed to know out here. Society’s rules. It’s more than just a new way of walking, you know. We didn’t learn all that at Churchburrow, and definitely not in juvie. We either learned that the most submissive was never seen, which was a good thing, but in juvie the one who could hit the hardest was right. Those two lessons didn’t go very well together as you might imagine, but, as you said, I’m a fast study, which is probably the reason I survived the change. I became flexible. Adaptable.”

  Mike stared at him for a long time. “What’s your best childhood memory,” he finally asked.

  “Easy, my first kiss,” Keelan said, smiling.

  “That didn’t exactly end happily.”

  “No, but as I said, Mike, you and I had very different upbringings. If I asked you the same question, you’d probably have to search through a whole bunch before finding one that might take that place.”

  Mike looked into the ceiling and nodded.

  “But I like movie nights and cheese platters, and... and to sit on rooftops and eat breakfast.”

  “Rooftops?”

  “I haven’t had a place of residence since Churchburrow, if you don’t count juvie or the other prisons.”

  “So... when we find your kid, it’s off to the quiet life on an Agro planet?”

  “Mike, our chances of finding that child are roughly non-existing. If Lewis can’t find anything, then we probably can’t either. We have a rough estimated time of birth and no gender.”

  “And the information I don’t have yet.”

  “Yeah, that too. But it won’t help us much.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Both Keelan and Mike had somewhat healed after the massive treatments they’d undergone during their fourteen days in the medical wing. And it turned out that one of the reasons they were getting the expensive and time-consuming treatment in the first place was that they were part of the physician’s education for becoming a real physician. He was almost done, too.

  Lewis took them to the docks, where service personnel ran in and out of the ship with consumable and durable goods.

  “Here are the last things.” Lewis handed Mike a case. “ID, A, and M-card. The ship has been re-coded.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And Keelan... Kaleb. Don’t kill Mike when you see your new ID.” Lewis smiled wickedly. “He has no idea.”

  “My ID?” Keelan asked. Mike looked equally puzzled.

  “When you’ve memorized your past, then destroy the memo-pad. Completely.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mike said.

  “Okay,” Keelan said.

  “By the way. Churchburrow revealed that the child was raised with them. You had a daughter.”

  “Is she still with them?” Keelan and Mike asked simultaneously.

  “No. She ran away a few years ago.”

  “Sounds like your daughter,” Mike said.

  “Daughter,” Keelan said, tasting the word. “No name?”

  “No, they wouldn’t give it to protect her.”

  “Nice protection, if she’s already gone!” Keelan sneered.

  “Yeah, well, that’s all I could find out in the short time I had.” Lewis shook Keelan’s hand. Keelan nodded and collected their last bags.

  “Thanks, Lewis,” Mike said.

  “Keep a low profile, okay? That’s the best way you can thank me. I’m running out of strings to pull and favors to collect. I’m even eyeballs-deep in favors I owe now.”

  “Call us if you need us, okay?” Mike said and shook Lewis’ hand. Lewis nodded. “And good luck with your project.”

  “Thanks. Now get out of my dock.”

  Mike did a clumsy salute, making Lewis role his eyes and smile. Mike helped Keelan lock away the bags for departure and went into the cockpit. When Keelan got there, Mike was sitting in the copilot seat.

  “That’s my seat.”

  “Nope. You’re gonna learn how to fly. Or at least landing and taking off without drawing the attention of half the spaceport.”

  “I’ll see if I can manage without taking one side of the hangar doors with me, then.”

  “Yes please.”

  Having unpacked and straightened out their cargo, they relaxed in the common room with coffee. They had set the course for Verion four, and Keelan knew he soon had to tell Mike the whole version of how he’d managed to walk into the hospital and snatch him. He stalled while Mike looked through the case Lewis had given them.

  “Here are the papers, Lewis, talk—” Mike looked up wide-eyed and clutched them to his chest before a devilish grin spread on his face.

  “What?”

  “Wait, I need to read this first.”

  “Okay... why?”

  “Because I don’t want you destroying it before I read it.” Mike had barely finished the sentence before Keelan bolted from his seat and jumped the table. He landed on the couch as Mike was making a run for it, and he just barely made it out of Keelan’s grasp.

  “What it is?”

  “Just wait a second!” Mike laughed, and speed read the rest of the information while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on Keelan. “Okay, here.” Mike handed him the pad and snatched the case which he rummaged through while Keelan turned his attention onto the pad’s information.

  “Nope! He can forget—no! What was the man thinking? Turn this ship around so I can fly it up his ass!” Keelan shouted.

  Mike howled with laughter, collapsing on the sofa and slapping his thighs.

  “That’s not funny!”

  Mike wiped at tears. “No, it’s the irony of fate, and that shit is hilarious!” Mike tossed Keelan something—a lawman ID with Keelan’s picture on it.

  “I don’t want to be a mercenary for the law!”

  “Well, you know how to do the job,” Mike said.

  Keelan tried to find something to contradict that but finally just flipped him off and turned his gaze on the atrocity in his hand. “Wait, are there any differences in the badges? This thing isn’t on Ratkins.” Keelan pointed to a detail in the shield.

  “That’s because Ratkins isn’t a former elite soldier. You are. Officially, anyway.”

  Keelan sat back down, and they made their way through Keelan’s new background story, and the lawman-detail wasn’t the only detail he disliked.

  “Is this Lewis’ way of trying to make me play nice?”

  “I don’t think so. More to make your skills plausible, I think. I told him what I taught you in Delta, and even though he looked like he wanted to strip his rank and whoop my ass, that didn’t change the fact that you managed to track me.”

  “Just to Motáll, actually. Verion four was a fluke. I just needed to go somewhere I knew, and I got the biggest ass-kicking ever. I ended up living on Red Turf a few days
with about twenty street kids. Until they disappeared one night. Military transporters landed, and I didn’t see them after that, even though I looked.” Keelan looked up, since Mike wasn’t participating a lot.

  Mike looked scared. Terrified, even. “Keelan, you must never speak out loud about that knowledge again. Ever!”

  “What, why?”

  “God dammit, if you put two and two together here, they’re going to send everything for us! And we’ll be interrogated... by the physician! And then killed. You know nothing about the military on Red Turf!”

  “Right now, you’re the one talking too much, Mike.”

  “Only so you’ll know why to never mention this to anyone else.”

  “Okay... let’s look at this.” Keelan motioned to his bogus background.

  Mike rubbed his face, flustered, and nodded, while Keelan wondered just what he’d stumbled upon that day. Something in him stirred. The feeling from the dreams—the feeling he couldn’t place. Was it a fear that something bad would happen to his daughter?

  He pushed it aside and focused on the information.

  “So, you and I as old comrades in arms, huh? I can’t do a believable ex-soldier.”

  “Sure, you just need to learn a bit of discipline and respect for authorities.”

  “Here.” Keelan flipped him off.

  Mike smiled. “Then again, there are those who are just at odds with everyone, and they still manage to finish their stint in the fleet.” Mike read on. “And lookie here! It even says you’re one of those in your records. Listen up. Kaleb Hunter shows, at times, a too big need for independence. He is thus not found suitable to advance into the ranks of an officer.”

  “Whee,” Keelan said monotonously.

  “Honorable discharge, a few spots in the records for brawling in the mess hall. Bad boy,” Mike said, grinning. He handed Keelan the memo-pad.

  “Does it make a difference that one of these boxes is ticked off wrong?”

  “It’s one big, fat lie.”

  “Yeah, but my blood type and stuff match. Should it say I’m an Evo-race?”

  “Nah, a lot of soldiers tick off human to avoid being harassed from jealousy that they can do something the humans can’t. Where are you from?”