Guarding an Angel
Page 8
“We should be able to do it before I have surgery then,” Masozi concluded.
“Sure thing,” Eve replied with a nod that saw her virtual hair bounce all around her face. “I just want to say,” she added in a serious voice, “thank you, Masozi.”
Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise unexpectedly at the apparently genuine emotion she heard in Eve’s voice, Masozi shook her head almost reflexively, “I don’t think a person should have to grow up without some sort of guidance. Besides,” she added with a lopsided grin, “you’ve saved my life a few times over already. Even if I didn’t want to do it, I owe you more than I can easily repay. And you’re right…” she said, sighing after considering whether or not to say the next words, “us girls need to stick together.”
Epilogue: A Clarion Call
“Bottom line, Doctor,” Jericho insisted after yet another digression into medical jargon with which he hoped to die having never become familiar.
“Your left arm was too badly damaged,” Maturin replied before Doctor Kowalski could do so, “if you allow us to graft new nerve tissue over the next four months we can mitigate some of the losses, but even without your recent excursion there simply wasn’t enough left of what was there to provide for a full recovery.”
“Will I lose it?” Jericho asked evenly. He had been more than slightly impressed when the duo of surgeons had successfully re-built and replaced his limb, having assumed his arm was gone permanently.
“No,” Dr. Kowalski cut in, slicing a harsh look over at Dr. Maturin, “but you’ll never regain full functionality, and the ring finger’s sensation will never recover either.”
“Ballpark estimate,” Jericho said, leaning back in his chair and drumming the fingers of his left hand slowly against the chair’s armrest, an act which took all of his concentration to continue with anything remotely resembling rhythm, “how much usage will I get out of it?”
“You’re right-handed,” Kowalski began in an encouraging tone that made Jericho roll his eyes, “so the impact to your daily activities of living will be minimal—“
“It will probably end up about half of what it was,” Maturin interrupted, fixing Jericho with his blue-eyed gaze. “There will be significant muscular atrophy, poor coordination of digits three through five, and the potential for random, mostly subtle, spasms. You won’t be able to shoot with it reliably, and even forming a fist for a punch will be a dicey proposition without hand-wear designed to facilitate the correct posture of the extremity.”
Jericho had experienced spasms a handful of times already, and had feared it heralded something degenerative. But his sensation, while still sketchy, was certainly good enough for him to work with. He held Dr. Maturin’s gaze as Dr. Kowalski shook her head, suppressing a snort as she did so.
“And nerve grafts are a long, drawn-out procedure, yes?” Jericho asked, first of Maturin and then looking pointedly over at Dr. Kowalski.
“Three months minimum,” Maturin replied promptly, “but in cases like yours, we’re realistically looking at more like seven or eight months of weekly grafts and growth stimulation therapy to be undertaken twice weekly.”
“During which time I would have no use of the limb?” Jericho reiterated.
“Not no use,” Dr. Kowalski said sharply, “but strenuous activity of any kind would destroy whatever progress we had made. And once a nerve is opened for grafting, interruption of the process causes permanent nerve ablation in over eighty percent of cases.”
“So my choices are,” Jericho said, drawing in a breath, “to take what I’ve got and learn to work with it, or sit on the sidelines for the better part of a year. That’s what I needed to know,” he said with a gracious nod. “I can’t sit by hoping to recover full use of my arm, but I appreciate your professional input. What kind of physical therapy regimen should I undertake to maintain maximum possible use of my arm?”
Dr. Maturin slid a data pad across the table and shrugged. “It’s nothing overly strenuous, but re-training the limb will take several weeks before you hit your peak efficiency. We have implants—“
“No implants,” Jericho repeated for what must have been the fifth time during the meeting. “Organic solutions only; I’ve made a career out of exploiting people’s overreliance on technology. I won’t fall victim to the same weakness.”
Just then Jericho’s data link chimed, and he flipped it on to see he had an incoming connection request from Captain Charles. He activated it and saw his cousin’s face on the screen.
“Jeff?” Jericho asked, but before his cousin could reply he had already guessed what the Captain of the Zhuge Liang meant to tell him.
“Switch to Virgin Public Broadcast,” Captain Charles said ominously. “It’s happening.”
“Thanks,” Jericho said evenly, and before he could tell them to do so, one of the doctors had activated the small office’s primary viewer. The screen sprang to life with the VPB logo in the lower, right-hand corner. Featured at the center of the display was the familiar image of Virgin System’s President Han-Ramil Blanco, proudly wearing his distinctive headwear.
“The images we’ve seen of the massacre at Philippa are nothing short of horrific,” President Blanco said, his stately veneer proudly wearing a look of grim resolution over his dark, angular features. “One thing is now clear to each and every one of us: Hadden Enterprises, its many subsidiaries, and several other interstellar corporate conglomerates have declared war upon the people of Virgin System. Corporations like Hadden have abused the rule of law for far too long and, as a result, their power has gone unchecked to the point where such a tragedy was not only possible, but actually occurred before our eyes.”
The room in which Jericho sat was silent and he watched as a video clip of the Zhuge Liang — a video which had apparently been taken from a ground-based telescope on Philippa — firing its antimatter torpedoes into the atmosphere replaced President Blanco’s features.
There was an audible gasp throughout the press conference room and the President’s features returned with a look of grim determination on them. “These corporations wield undue power throughout the Sector due to their manipulation of our most fundamental laws. I am joined by several other System Presidents in expressing our categorical desire to see justice done for this, and other crimes against sentience — including, we have learned in recent days, the wholesale enslavement of millions of alien individuals by these same corporations. This previously undocumented labor pool’s activities have played havoc with our economic system, and I will see to it that these aliens are remunerated fairly for their efforts before I step down from this office! The beneficiaries of this slavery have been none other than the same corporations who so callously opened fire on a colony which, until only recently, enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Hadden Enterprises.”
“Bastards,” Jericho heard Dr. Maturin seethe, and he turned to see the other man’s fists clenched white-knuckle tight before himself as he kept his eyes fixed on the screen.
“Moreover,” Blanco continued, “the foundational principle of our Sector’s society has come under fire from these same elements. The right of the citizenry to sanction its leaders is the First Right of our great society, and it is a right which must be cherished and respected…” he trailed off, sweeping the room with his dark, nearly black, eyes, “but we now have evidence to suggest that the Timent Electorum agency itself has been unduly influenced by the corporations. Entities like Hadden Enterprises have manipulated these noble defenders of our most sacred rights, often without the Adjusters’ knowledge, and we now believe that centuries-old agency no longer fills the essential role it once did.” Blanco leaned across the podium, the impressive breadth of his body becoming apparent as he did so, “I am therefore instructing all Adjusters to temporarily cease and desist in their activities until the damage done to their august order can be assessed and corrected. With the universe’s blessing, that damage can be repaired so they may continue to carry out
their sacred duty on behalf of us all, wrapped in the same cloak of transparency which pervades every other aspect of our society.”
There was a loud cheer, followed by a cacophony of applause as the entire room stood to applaud him. Jericho could not help but smirk contemptuously at the sight of people applauding the dissolution of their most fundamental civil liberty. He knew that the Adjusters of the Virgin System would never follow the unilateral edict of President Blanco — or any other official, regardless of their relative power — but Jericho also knew that the President was fully aware of that fact. Blanco was all but inviting assassination attempts, as he had just publicly declared the First Right of the Chimera Sector’s body politic to be under his office’s direct jurisdiction — an absolute impossibility according to the Sector’s Bill of Rights.
The President schooled his features as he stood to his full, imposing, height, “Now, therefore, I, Han-Ramil Blanco, President of the Virgin System, in virtue of the power in me vested by the laws which every loyal Chimera citizen holds dear, have thought fit to call forth our honorable military defenders, and hereby do call upon the loyal populace of this System to support their efforts, in order to suppress said corporations, and to cause those same laws for which we have all bled, suffered, and died, to be duly executed as they were truly intended.”
Jericho felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach as he knew the statement for what it truly was. It was a declaration of war, but not against corporations. Blanco — apparently with the support of several other System leaders — was attempting to restructure the Sector’s government from the ground up, and the people whose lives would be most affected were those with the least power. The corporations would survive in some form or another, but the liberties which the citizens of Chimera Sector had enjoyed were now under direct fire from a man with the podium, charisma, and opportunity to undo everything which had given those citizens life after the wormhole collapse.
“I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort,” Blanco continued as the applause nearly drowned out his powerful voice, “to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our System and, indeed, our Sector entire, and the perpetuity of the popular government which saw us cast off the yoke of Imperial tyranny; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.”
The feed then panned back as President Blanco stepped away from the podium to face a group of military officials. There were at least a dozen of them and from their insignia they appeared to be ranked General, or Admiral, to the last. They took turns shaking hands with the towering Blanco as the video feed split the screen in two images side by side.
In addition to the President shaking the hands of his war cabinet, the view also included assembled throng of reporters — which had literally packed the auditorium generally reserved for major policy announcements — applauding as loudly as they were able. Tears streamed down the faces of several members of the crowd, but each droplet of moisture was one born of joy rather than despair.
The feed went dark, and Jericho realized Dr. Maturin had deactivated the feed with trembling hands which were no longer white with tension. The man’s face had turned as red as an engine exhaust manifold and he stormed out of the room without another word, leaving Jericho and Dr. Kowalski alone.
Jericho wanted to contact Masozi, but she had been quite specific in her desire not to interact with him until after her surgery and immediate recovery had been completed.
So he stood from his chair and Dr. Kowalski did likewise before saying in a tight voice, “I hope you kill that man.”
Jericho stopped and gave the woman a quizzical look. “That’s a strange thing to hear a doctor say.”
“I got into medicine to fight disease, and any good physician understands what disease really is,” she said as she raised a finger to point at the now darkened screen. “That man is a cancer unlike anything our Sector has seen; I just wish I had the right scalpel for the job…because I’d use it to cut him out right now if I could.”
Jericho couldn’t help but snicker as his data link lit up, showing an incoming call from Masozi. “Doctor,” he said as he activated the link and accepted the incoming call, “that scalpel is standing right in front of you.”
She nodded curtly as Jericho saw Masozi’s features appear on the screen of his wrist-mounted data link. “All right, you smug son of a bitch,” the dark-skinned woman said, and in that moment the resemblance between herself and President Blanco was striking, “let’s kill that piece of shit.”
For reasons he was unable to comprehend in that moment, Jericho felt a wave of relief wash over him. He nodded slowly and said, “Glad to have you on board, Masozi.”
“That’s ‘Adjuster’ to you,” she spat before severing the link and, while her rebuke pained him in ways he hadn’t expected, he knew he deserved every bit of it…and then some.
Still, he did need to explain to her that she wasn’t a fully-fledged Adjuster just yet. But that could come later. And in light of Jericho’s recent discovery regarding his left arm’s diminished utility, he was doubly grateful to have Masozi on his side.
Even if they weren’t on a first name basis.
The End
Thank you for reading Guarding an Angel
Continue reading this series with Book II: Sic Semper Tyrannis
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Book I: Ure Infectus
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