by James Darcey
It was almost a half hour later that a buzzing sound preceded the arrival of another human on a small ground transport. This one wore what I would guess as a uniform. He came over and lifted the blanket to examine my wounds. Most of the bleeding had stopped by now. I had the same luck trying to talk with him as well. A uniform meant government of some kind, and that was a good thing, right? Except that he was the wrong faction from my mother. They strapped me into a litter on his transport, like I was a hunting prize.
He wound that transport through the trees for several kilometers before arriving at a wide spot that had been upgraded with a hard surface. A larger transport was there with two men wearing white uniforms, as opposed to his dark green one. Was he really turning me over to another faction? Perhaps I could be traded to my mother's faction soon. Strange, they all spoke the same language. Was this going to be like Reliance Guards wearing a different uniform than the repair crew? My mother had worn yellow, though I don't think it was any kind of uniform.
They lifted my litter off the small transport, keeping me strapped into the same basket as they loaded it into the back of the larger transport. This one traveled much faster and smoother on the hard surface. For some reason they had turned on an alarm siren and beacon lights. I don't know how far this one traveled because I passed out a couple of times along the way. I regained consciousness as they were lifting the basket from the transport, and placing it on a wheeled cart.
They pushed me into the building at a run, shoving me past other people that were standing around with minor injuries. There were more of the white dressed people that we passed, and one of them even looked a bit like my mother. I told her that as we passed, but it sounded more like 'yo lug leek mudd', coming from lips that didn't want to work right. She stood there staring after me as they pushed me around a corner, and out of sight. I had hope then -- members of my mother's faction were close by.
I ended my travel in a partitioned section of what can only be described as manually operated medical facility. The two men pushing me left, and were replaced by a woman who began to cut away clothing from the wounds. Things like my belt and pouch ended up being placed in a bag on the counter. She asked me a few questions, but I had no idea what she was saying. She was using that same language. The best I could do was to reply in the one Terra language that I knew. She said something and I talked back in my Terra tongue. A few times of this, and she became a bit frustrated and used a comm device mounted to the wall. A moment later the woman I had seen in the passageway entered, and greeted me.
"I'm Jun, Do you speak Japanese?"
"If that is what it's called, then I surmise I do. I am Ion. Where am I?"
She smiled a little nervously. "This is Yellowstone Hospital. The Rangers brought you in. He said you looked as though you had been attacked by a bear."
"That's what that big fuzzy thing is called? A bear?"
"Most likely it was a Grizzly Bear. You are quite lucky. Bears can kill you. Where are you from?"
"I think it ate half my arm. Can I get something to eat?"
"Those compresses will stop the bleeding, and then the doctor can stitch up the wound. I'll see about getting a pain killer for you. Your name is Ion?"
They were going to treat my injuries by sewing? So far I had seen nothing like a bio bed, or even the more elaborate version that Teyrn had in the lab complex. Perhaps that was reserved for members of their faction only.
She was still waiting for answers to her queries. I certainly didn't want to start out with announcing I was from an orbital lab halfway across the galaxy. I gave the information that had been on my mother's things. I had wanted so much to have a connection to her that I had memorized everything, including the pattern on the folding fan. It was a white bird among plant stalks.
"565 Kamasaki Fukuoka Kuramoto, Shiraishi-shi, Miyagi-ken"
"That sounds like Sendai address. You're a long way from home. You came all this way to play with the bears?"
I could tell that she was attempting to interject some humor into the situation. The other woman was still there and using something that felt like a deeply serrated torture tool to clean out the cuts on my side. I did my best to endure the pain. It was actually mild compared to some of the testing that Teyrn had performed on me. Every time I flinched she would stop. She would then try to work a little more gently, but I knew there was no way to gently get the dirt and grass out of the drying blood.
"I came... to find something about Yoko Ryokan. She was in this area before. You... look a lot like her."
While I was busy talking to Jun, another woman came in to take the place of the first, and proceeded to inject liquid into the spots around the torn flesh. I could tell from her face that it looked bad. It felt bad too. Any minute now they were going to realize that it was bad enough to put me onto a bio bed. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought; she started to stitch it together by hand, and ended by wrapping bandages around my side and shoulder. She paused for a bit when she got to the side of my head. That only needed a bandage taped in place there. She took a sample of blood to test for diseases. Jun translated something the lady was asking me about getting a tetanus shot.
"I wasn't shot; that bear bit me. I think I scared him."
Jun smiled again, "Not shot like weapon. Injection for tetanus medicine. Are you allergic to anything?"
"I'm so sorry. I don't understand those words. Tentus? Allegeneric?"
Jun and the other lady talked for a moment before she turned back to me, nodding agreement to something the woman had said, "Doctor Herrin suggests that we hold off on the injection until the blood test returns."
The other woman finished at last, helping Jun to poke a needle into my arm with water dripping into it from a small bag. I could tell that something was really bothering Jun, so I tried a bit of humor about the dripping water.
"Hmm... tastes like it needs more salt."
She smiled and told me I needed some sleep. I would feel better in the morning. I asked her a few more questions trying to find out what I could from the one person I could talk with. I had to find my mother's family soon.
"You are from Sendai?"
Again, she smiled nervously, "I was born in Kyoto. I came here to study medicine and ended up staying here. You will rest now, and I will be here in morning."
I found myself getting sleepier. My eyes were feeling heavy as I watched her walk out of the room. I awoke to the sound of a woman bringing in a tray with food on it. She greeted me, but didn't bother to wait for a reply to whatever it was she had asked. It sounded cheerful whatever it was. She was even whistling softly as she pulled back the bandage covering my shoulder. For a moment I thought of Lafiel and her humming.
Whatever she saw there startled her enough to run out of the room. A few minutes later she returned with a man, pointing at my shoulder. Something wasn't right from the sound of their voices. Even across the language difference, I could hear concern. He peeled the bandages from my sides as well, touching the spots gently. The pain was nearly gone. He looked scared too.
I had to try; maybe he knew my language, "What is wrong?"
He either didn't know it, or didn't think I was worth replying to. For a moment my mind put me back in that lab aboard the orbital station, with Teyrn's lab workers acting as though I didn't exist. I wanted to scream at him. Lash out with a bolt of lightning, but he was Human.
Just as I'm discovering that my arms and legs are bound to the bed, he flipped a lever to drop it back to the horizontal. I did yell this time, just as they were shoving me through the door. His response was to flip the sheet over my head, or nearly so. I could still see out to the side.
Around a few corners as the rolling bed nearly hit a few other people walking through the passageways. I ended my short journey in a room staring up at what could only be a scanner. Now I was starting to get concerned.
"Jun!"
I had been put under scanners and tested far too many times. I wasn't going to return to a li
fe that revolved around finding out how much I could endure. So far I had been treated well, and I would hold off on destroying this machine if I could get an answer. I fairly screamed at him.
"You're not going to put me through this machine without telling me what is wrong! Are you planning to try testing me here? I will ruin your machine if you try to use it on me!"
The man seemed frustrated and used the comm unit on the wall to make a request for something. He began pacing, stopping periodically to say something to the woman. Sometimes he turned and spoke to me, putting on a mask of sincerity. I wasn't about to smile at someone ready to put me through a tortuous testing process. I had enough energy to fry him if need be, but I needed Jun more.
Eventually Jun came running in the door of the room, sounding like she had run many kilometers. She greeted the man as she got her panting under control. They conversed for a few minutes before she turned to me. She smiled, but I could tell there was a great deal of concern behind that expression.
"Good morning, Ion. I must humbly apologize for my absence this morning. The doctor wants to take a picture of your shoulder and side. He is concerned they healed too fast and wants to see inside."
"It won't injure me?"
"He asks that you hold still so that it can work. You are healing better he tells me."
All it would do is allow them to view under the skin to ensure that the healing was proper. It didn't inspire confidence in its safety when they all left the room before energizing the machine. The machine was like a tunnel that the bed slid into. I could hear the big thing beginning to hum as I was getting moved into the scanning area. I had been inside other scanning machines that closed in on me, so I wasn't too frightened of this. Jun had promised that I wouldn't be hurt.
Suddenly the scanner started thumping, and I felt a surge building inside me. It wasn't that I was worried, but the charge was building on its own. I tried to shove it down, but every thump simply increased it. After several thumps the charge jumped to the machine. I could feel the sparks dancing along the inside of the tunnel. The humming whine of it died off to silence as the room darkened.
Jun helped translate as the doctor apologized for the machine breaking as they pulled me back out of it. While the scowling doctor went off in search of his repair crew, I took the opportunity to thank Jun for talking to me. With a wave of her hand she brushed my comments aside to tell me some news.
"I went home last night and tried looking up the name you gave me. I spent few hours looking to find out that Yoko dies twenty-one years ago. Why are you looking for her here? She drowned in Yellowstone Lake while here with her family."
"No, she was taken from here. Died about ten years ago."
Jun was shaking her head, "The news report said that she had disappeared from her family camp while they were vacationing, and it was suspected that either she had drowned in the lake or kidnapped by a seasonal employee that vanished the same day. They found her canoe broken on the lake shore. The search went on for two weeks without finding her body."
It was my turn to shake my head, "Kidnapped by someone else."
The doctor interrupted Jun's next words as he pushed into the room with another man behind him. Short words and pointing fingers sent the second man looking into the machine with a light. He then turned to Jun with more of his gruff directions. He only glanced at me a couple times as he waved a hand toward the door.
She didn't say anything more to me as she shoved my bed back out the door, turning opposite to the way we had come. She was pushing me along fast again, like when I had been brought here by the white coats. Two corridors and three turns later, she slowed. Her face twisted into a puzzled expression as we banged through doors into another room full of machines.
"It doesn't make any sense."
"Jun, what do you talk about?"
"The doctor. He wanted to do some tests on you, but then he said FBI were coming to talk to you. Then he said you had healed. How can you be healed?"
I don't think she knew all of the details. If they weren't even telling her the truth, what hope was there for me? That blood they had taken probably gave them a clue that I was different. Now they wanted to test me to find out just how different I was.
"Can you help me to use the sanitation chamber? I really need to go."
It was about the best excuse I could think of to get out of the restraints. Jun had been helpful so far, and I think she was being as honest as she could be with the information they were giving her. Whatever was going on didn't feel normal from the expressions she was giving them.
As soon as she unfastened the straps, I waved her back to stand on my own. She started to protest, but again I ignored her initial words and asked her if she could show me a map of where Yoko had lived. This puzzled her for a minute, so I was compelled to elaborate.
"She was my mother. I want to see where she lived."
From her pocket she pulled out a palm size device; A very nice comm unit that she called a cell phone. She touched the screen and manipulated it a bit. In a moment she had a tiny map display. It showed the large island chain to the far west of our location. I remembered that we had picked up signals from there with the right language, but Teyrn's notes showed that he hadn't made any stops there. She expanded the map to show the northern part of the large island.
"This is Miyagi Prefecture. You would know that if you were really from there."
"I'm from a bit further away."
"Why did you dye your skin and hair? How are you healed?"
It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't seen anyone with color even close to mine. There were browns and reds and pinks, but no greens at all -- such an obvious thing to have overlooked in my searching. Here I thought language was going to be my biggest give away that I didn't belong to this faction.
"Is green a problem? Who is FBI?"
"The doctor is supposed to come do some more tests before those special agents show up to take you away. Probably because they don't know who you are. There wasn't any ID in your purse. They're coming from Billings, but he called them a few hours ago. Probably only a half hour till they get here."
With her help, I found the bag of items they had removed from me stuffed into the bottom of the bed. My shirt had been discarded because of the damage it had received, but my pouch and belt were there along with my comm unit. It was smaller than hers, but didn't have any maps in it. From the pouch I pulled out several of the coins to hand to Jun.
"Here, and thank you. Also I apologize for this."
"Apologize? But I can't..."
I nodded and hit her with a jolt just large enough to make her unconscious. She had been very nice to me and I didn't like hurting her. I gently eased her limp form to the bed. Thinking that it might look better for her, I looped the straps around her wrists. She would hurt a little when she woke, and I only hoped that they wouldn't torture her to gain answers about me. The coins I had set in her hands were now lying on the floor, so I stuck them into one of her pockets.
I had to look through several doors to find something to replace the dress they had put on me. I would look too obvious with the rear opening it had. I found a white coat like the doctor had worn. I dropped the flimsy dress and traded it for the coat which wasn't much sturdier. Even in this coat, I was still going to be spotted easily. This just made me look like a faction official. There was a towel in the closet that I wrapped my hair in. That would help a little, but not for long. I climbed out the window, and crept along the bushes lining the building.
I didn't have any idea as to which way to go. Even if I did manage to find my way back to the forest, would the rangers be waiting for me? Or the bear? Either way, I had a long distance to travel. Time to call my friends for a little help.
"Captain Ion, What happened? I thought you were going to check in with us eleven point three hours ago,"
Lafiel questioned when I turned on the comm unit.
"Sorry, Lafiel. I ran into something called a bear grizzly
. They transported me to a medical center that didn't even have bio beds. I managed to get away before the local faction officers came for me. At least I found out where to go now."
"Traxel's in one of his sleep cycles, but I can lift off to come get you."
"Not here. It's best if I meet you at an air transport facility. It would be less noticeable for the ship that way. Can you give me directions?"
I would meet them when it got dark. Now all I had to do was figure a way to travel about fifty kilometers before dark. The plaza next to me held hundreds of the small transports, but I had no way to make one of them work. All the ones I found were locked up.
Not far from the medical clinic I found a shop that sold clothes. It was much better than the shops on Rage. There were racks of shirts in front of the door, and all sorts of clothing inside, but I didn't dare enter such a confined area. I hid by the corner of the building watching how the bartering worked here. It didn't take long to notice which people were working the shop. I had watched the girl exchange clothing for the local currency and waited for her to come near me. I took a big chance on this one, and cornered her. I pointed to a shirt and a hat, and then I placed a coin in her hands. She stared at the coin for a moment. I was just getting worried she might reveal me when she ran over and removed a shirt from the display. It was blue, and of all things had a bear on the front of it.
She brought the shirt and a few hats to me. The third one seemed to fit my head well enough. I dropped the white doctor's coat and donned the shirt. Her face flashed red, and she turned her back. If they could change color so well, why was my skin a problem? As I pulled the shirt over my head I realized that my shoulder still hurt a great deal. It had mostly healed on the outside, but there were deeper injuries. I needed food too.