by Magus Tor
Jonathon listened closely and nodded. “I see what you're getting at,” he said as they descended the stairs. “Skills like that could be very useful to us. And we might take advantage of them later. But right now we have one priority: we need to get Nicholas out.” They were approaching the door of Nicholas's room, so Jonathon stopped for a moment. “He's a dangerous man, Aurelia, and it's best for us all right now if we get rid of him.”
“I disagree,” Aurelia began, but Jonathon was already turning and opening the door.
Nicholas was standing, looking pale, which Aurelia guessed was because he'd been inside for too long already.
“Don't worry,” she said, going over to hug him. “We're here because Jonathon has a plan to get you out of here.”
The Clone bit his lip, but he nodded and sat down on the couch.
Aurelia sat next to Nicholas. Jonathon grabbed a desk chair, sat on it, and started speaking.
“Alrighty, the most obvious solution to the problem is to get you off Lunar altogether, right?” he said.
“Why?” asked Aurelia immediately. She wasn't trying to be dense, and she thought getting Nicholas to Earth would probably be in his best interests, but she wanted to make sure.
Jonathon smiled at her. “Let's come back to that in a second. We need to make Nicholas as unidentifiable as possible. There are places on Earth that we can hide him, but not as long as he looks like a Clone. That means getting him a new uniform and finding a way to cover up at least his wrist numbers. And part of the reason we need to get him to Earth is that people in Lunar are just too used to seeing Clones. Even if someone doesn't recognise him as Nicholas, which is always a possibility, then the build, the facial structure, everything will scream Clone to a Lunar resident. Earth residents see far fewer Clones and are far less likely to jump to that conclusion. Right?”
Both Aurelia and Nicholas nodded.
“So the plan is that we get Nicholas back to Earth. Questions?”
“Er...” It was Aurelia who spoke first. “That's not really a plan. I mean, it's more of an idea than a plan, isn't it?”
Jonathon's face fell a little. “Yeah, I know. I'm working on the details, and there are still a few arrangements to make, but I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. You could have valuable input. We'll get to transport in a moment, but first let's talk about hiding Nicholas's identity.”
Aurelia crossed her legs and sat back. “Obviously the Hospital is the right place for that,” she said. “We can requisition uniforms—well, Elza can, without arousing suspicion since we have so many Workers.”
“A tech Worker uniform would be best,” put in Nicholas. “I mean, I can handle tech stuff if necessary, but I'll have a hard time pretending to be a med Worker.”
“Not a problem,” Aurelia said. “There are plenty of tech Workers at the hospital. That leaves the issue of the wrist numbers. As far as I know, they're irremovable, correct?”
Nicholas nodded. “Can't be cut out or removed in any way. Trying to modify them will simply trigger an alarm system at best or kill me at worst. They're designed that way.”
“Okay, so if we can't take them out or change them, maybe the best thing to do is cover them,” said Aurelia, thinking aloud.
Jonathon looked curious. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she explained, “that we cover them up. If I can graft synth skin over the numbers, then they won't show. Well, they will after a few months; they'll grow through as the skin binds together, but for a while they won't be there.”
Nicholas nodded. “That could work.”
“I'll need to talk to Elza about all of this, to make sure, but I think we can do it,” said Aurelia.
“And then what do I do without a personal number?” Nicholas asked.
It was a good question. A citizen's number was everything: it was required to enter buildings, to get rations, to get housing. Every day on multiple occasions, everyone recited their number.
“I've got contacts in City 01 that will deal with that,” said Jonathon. “It's not a problem. You'll either be taken somewhere where you won't need a number, or you'll be given a false one that will be logged into the system. That's the least of our problems right now.”
“The biggest problem,” Aurelia said, uncrossing and her legs and crossing them in the opposite direction, “is how to get you off Lunar without attracting attention.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Jonathon. “I was waiting for you to come up with that, and that's where I come in. I know exactly how to get him off. There are a couple of people that owe me a favour, one of which I spoke to last night. Remember the shuttle pilots?” he asked Aurelia.
How could she forget? On her trip up to Lunar, the shuttle that all three of them had travelled in had been attacked. Just as the attack had started, Aurelia had been visiting the flight deck and had met both the pilot and his co-pilot.
“Technically, a pilot is considered to be responsible for his shuttle,” Jonathon said. “Which means that if your shuttle is destroyed because, oh, say, someone's trying to assassinate a presidential hopeful who happens to be riding up to Lunar...”
Aurelia gave a small snort. That was exactly what had happened. Jonathon winked at her.
“Then...” he continued, “you are held responsible and downgraded in order to pay for your mistake. However, I interviewed both pilots after the accident and was satisfied that they'd had nothing to do with the incident. So I spoke up for them. I pulled rank, and both guys are still flying.”
Aurelia saw where this was going. “And now they owe you and in return are willing to take Nicholas down on a flight.”
“Yep. We've got to smuggle him on board, but they're willing to carry a stowaway and make sure that he gets off the shuttle at the other end.”
“It sounds quite... simplistic,” Nicholas said hesitantly.
“That's the beauty of it,” said Jonathon. “Less complicated plans have less chance to go wrong.”
Aurelia nodded in agreement. “It sounds like our best chance.”
“And what if I don't want to go to Earth?” Nicholas asked, his voice less hostile than the question seemed.
Jonathon looked at him. “If you want to live, it seems that you don't have any other choice right now.”
Nicholas was still pale, but he nodded.
“Alright, I'm getting out of here; I need to contact the people who will help you when you get down there,” Jonathon said, standing. “I'll be upstairs if you need me,” he added, talking to Aurelia.
When he left, Aurelia turned to Nicholas. “Are you okay with all of this?”
He shrugged. “He's right; what choice do I have? Live first and plan for the future second, right?”
Aurelia gave him a hug. “I need to go and talk to Elza,” she told him.
“No chess?”
“Maybe next time.”
He was still sitting on the couch when she left, but she didn't have time to console him any longer. She knew that he was afraid that being on Earth would mean the end of his fight for the Clones. And it might. Away from Lunar, away from the influence of the Ruling Class, and presumably cut off from all other Clones, there would be little that he could do. Aurelia hoped for his sake that Jonathon would agree to let him return once he was President, but there were no guarantees.
She found Jonathon in the living room and gave him a brief goodbye kiss before calling a transport pod to take her back to the hospital.
Elza nodded when she heard Aurelia's plan. “I think it will work, though the skin graft won't last forever.”
“I know,” said Aurelia. “But we'll deal with that when it happens. Possibly graft more synth skin over when the numbers appear again.”
“Can't,” said Elza. “You can't graft synth more than once. You can try again with real skin, but the scarring will probably be even more suspicious than the original numbers. Nicholas will need a new plan before long.”
“By which point Jonathon will hopefully be l
eading the Empire, and we won't need to worry about Nicholas,” said Aurelia. “That's the best we can hope for.”
“Mmm,” said Elza in agreement. “Alright, I'll arrange for a uniform; that shouldn't be too hard to get hold of. You'll have to do the graft yourself. Have you done one before?”
“A few times,” Aurelia said. “It shouldn't be a problem. And I can get everything that I need from trauma. I can't bring Nicholas here, so I'll do it in situ.”
“Fine. Just make sure the synth stays in its sterile packaging until you're ready to put it on. There'll still be a little contamination that way, but that's unavoidable outside of the surgery vacuum. Give him a couple of anti-infect shots, and he should be fine.”
“There is one thing,” Aurelia said slowly.
“I know,” Elza interrupted. “You'll need a second code to access the materials. I'd give you mine, but in all honesty, I'm not going to be up and around for a couple of days yet. I can barely walk to the bathroom at the moment. I suggest that you ask Jason.”
Aurelia had hoped to avoid involving Jason, but she had no choice. It would take two med Workers to enter a code to open the cupboard containing the skin grafts. Generally a trauma doctor and a surgeon performed the graft, but in this case there was no surgeon, so Jason it would have to be. She just hoped he was willing to ask as few questions as he had with Elza.
As it turned out, Jason asked no questions at all. She asked for his code during a busy period the next morning, and he plugged it into the cupboard without a word before going back to his own patient. Aurelia guessed that he was just too busy to worry about it, as she was too busy to worry about performing the graft that evening. It had to be done, and it had to be done soon; Nicholas would need at least twenty-four hours to recuperate before he could travel.
Jonathon was to be her assistant, a role he accepted with alacrity.
“I like watching you work,” he said when she asked.
“You might not when you see what's going to happen,” she said, but she was grateful for his help.
She'd brought sterile sheets from the hospital, and Nicholas was ready and waiting when they got downstairs. She gave him a sedative shot, but she couldn't risk putting him under completely, so Jonathon talked calmly with him while Aurelia prepared what she needed. Then there was nothing left to prepare, and she had to start. Taking a deep breath, she approached the bed.
“Okay, I'm going to have to tell you what's going to happen. You're going to see it anyway, and I don't want you panicking,” she said, as calmly as she could.
Nicholas swallowed but nodded.
“The grafting of the synth skin itself is fairly easy and will take a few moments. It may sting during the sealing process, but other than that it should be fairly painful. What has to happen before, on the other hand, isn't going to be pleasant.”
“Why?” asked Jonathon. “Can't you just graft the skin and be done with it?”
Aurelia shook her head. “It doesn't work like that. Synth skin needs a surface to bind to, and it won't bind to the smoothness of regular skin. Usually we use synth skin to cover burns or large areas where the skin has been scraped away. Those kinds of uneven surfaces are perfect for binding.”
The sedative was certainly keeping Nicholas calm, and his voice was thick when he spoke. “Which I guess means you've got to mess my wrists up some so you can graft, right?”
“Pretty much,” admitted Aurelia. “Although 'mess up' isn't necessarily the medical term I'd have used.”
“Seems to sum it up, though,” said Jonathon.
“I just need you to be prepared. It's not going to be pretty, and you might not want to watch. But you do both need to keep very still, okay?”
Both men nodded. Aurelia brought over her equipment and told Jonathon to hold Nicholas's right arm, and then she began.
Scouring the skin of his arm was more difficult than she had imagined. Hurting someone went against everything that she'd been trained to do, and even though she knew what she was doing was necessary, she found it incredibly difficult to put enough pressure onto the scourer to create damage. On top of that, she needed to avoid damaging the number itself in case it set off some kind of alarm. Instead she scraped away the skin around the number so the graft would have an edge to bind to. Eventually she judged that the skin was rough enough, and she prepared to lay the graft over the wound.
“Why is it packaged like that?” Jonathon asked, as she peeled back the wrappings. He had shown great interest in everything that she'd done so far, and he hadn't flinched when she had scraped at Nicholas's wrist.
“Historically, the biggest problems with grafting skin were acceptability and hygiene,” she explained, still concentrating on her work. “With synth skin, we no longer have to worry about grafts not being accepted by the body. Hygiene is another issue, though. We have to keep the grafts completely sterile to avoid any contamination getting into the wound itself; otherwise, infections set in. In a surgical vacuum that's not a problem, but here it is.”
“Won't the skin be contaminated as soon as it's exposed to air?” he asked.
“Yes, but I've minimised the amount of time that it's exposed. If you look, the back of the graft, the part that will bind to the skin, is still covered. I can't eliminate the threat of contamination completely, but I'll give a couple of anti-infect shots when I'm done, and things should be fine.”
She laid the graft over the wound and grabbed the tool used to seal the skin on. When she was satisfied, she turned to Nicholas.
“Ready for the other arm?” she asked gently.
He bit his lip but nodded. She couldn't help his pain; she daren't give him more sedative. He had yet to cry out or utter a word, though, and she appreciated his bravery.
It took a further half hour before she was done. She stuck two needles into Nicholas's arm, then began to bundle up all the equipment.
“What now?” asked Jonathon.
“I'll stick around for a little while, make sure that nothing immediate happens when the sedatives wear off, maybe give a small pain shot if necessary. Other than that, we wait. He'll need around twenty-four hours before he can move the grafted skin naturally, at which point the binding will have begun and there'll be less chance of infection. He shouldn't move until then. By this time tomorrow, he should be good to go.”
Jonathon nodded. He looked over at the bed where Nicholas was lying with his wrists upturned and his eyes closed. Aurelia saw a new respect for the Clone in Jonathon’s eyes, and she was glad for Nicholas that he'd been so courageous.
“I'll let you guys talk for a while, if you want?” Jonathan said.
Aurelia smiled. “Sure. I'll be up later.”
“Can you stay?” His face was hopeful.
She sighed. I shouldn't. She should be at the hospital in case she was needed. On the other hand, Jason had sixth and seventh days off, so she could call him to cover for her. In the end she nodded, and Jonathon smiled, bade Nicholas goodbye, and left.
Aurelia went to the bed. “How are you feeling?” Nicholas was white, but his pulse and breathing were fine. Just a little in shock, Aurelia guessed.
“I'm good, don't worry,” he said.
Then Aurelia had an idea. “Can I borrow your screen to order something from the hospitality Worker?”
Nicholas nodded to where his screen lay on the desk. Aurelia quickly found the appropriate icon and ordered hot tea with sugar. Excellent for shock, despite not being a pharmaceutical. Nicholas was obviously in pain and needed something to take his mind off things, so Aurelia grabbed the chess box from the bookshelf.
“Wanna play?” she asked him.
Of course he did. She set the board up on a side table, which she dragged next to the bed. She was about to make the first move when she heard footsteps in the corridor. The tea. She managed to prop Nicholas up on pillows and give him some of the liquid, which quickly gave him some colour back. Then they proceeded to play, Aurelia moving both her pieces and Nicholas
's so he didn't have to use his hands.
The Clone didn't speak much, and she could see that his arms were painful and that the pain was beginning to tire him.
“Wanna quit?” she asked after a while.
“And let you beat me by default? No way!”
She admired his tenacity and allowed him to continue playing. “Are you afraid to go to Earth?” she asked him.
He gave a small smile. “Not afraid—more frustrated, I guess. I mean, I see the sense of it, but the thought of being away from Lunar, away from the heart of things, bothers me.”
As she picked up her bishop to move, she asked him something that had occurred to her before. “Are there other Clones that feel as you do?” she said. “I mean, others that are backing your particular cause?”
He watched her move carefully. “Yes, some. We're a little disorganised; it's tough. But there are people I can trust, even in the Military Class.”
“Like who?” she asked sharply.
Nicholas raised a questioning eyebrow.
“What I mean,” she elaborated, “is that, should something happen to you, is there someone else I can talk to, or someone I should tell? That's all.”
He moved a knight before leaning his head back on the pillow to think. After a moment he said: “If you need someone and I'm not here and you can't contact me, then try to find Zak. He will help you if I can't.”
Aurelia accepted this without comment, but she repeated the name to herself a few times. She wanted to make sure that there was someone to talk to, and for Nicholas's sake, should something happen to him, should he be captured, she wanted to know that the Clone fight would continue. Whether I’ll help them without Nicholas, I’m not sure. But that wasn't something she was willing to think about now.
“Checkmate,” said Nicholas, breaking her out of her thoughts.
She looked at the board. Crap. I should have been paying attention to the game rather than being lost in thought. Definitely checkmate. She gave Nicholas a sheepish grin and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“I've had more practice than you,” he said.