by S J Taylor
I held my breath as I slid along the wall, watching all around me at once, mostly hidden by the trees and the brush, too low to be seen through the narrow rectangular windows of the building above my head.
No alarms. No sudden shouts from gray-suited Enforcers.
The medical facility itself was fairly squat, with a small courtyard surrounded by the three wings of the building that held its various wards and rehabilitation rooms. The front of it, whenever I had been here, had always seemed so comforting. Solid. Sturdy. Safe. Now, its appearance had changed in my mind. I don’t know. Maybe it was because I had graduated last night and I was more mature now. Or maybe my impression of it was colored by my secret thoughts.
Saskia was in there, and she might not come out. Ever.
The safe haven of the medical center, looking at it now, resembled the secure detention facility behind the Enforcers’ barracks.
Nobody in their right mind would want to go near this place anyway. Unless you were hurt, broke a bone, or got cut during blade training, no one came here but the medical staff and the Enforcers. There were sick people here, and what if you caught what they had? What if you had to be quarantined? It went against every rule of the Restored Society. We had to keep ourselves fit, healthy, and free of any disease if we are going to help control the chaos that had overtaken the Earth. It was our duty to the Future, to Humanity.
We hold the future in our hands. We strive against the darkness. We carry the hopes of all.
I didn’t need slogans right now. I needed my friend.
So I pushed all that aside and crept along the outer wall with my bottom lip between my teeth and my senses alert for anything at all, until I came to one of the outer doors. There was the standard control panel next to it with its biometric scanner and pass card slot. The thing looked… broken. Like it hadn’t been used in years and no one had bothered to replace it. This was the side wall of the building, not the front, and no one was supposed to be back here, so maybe…
On a whim I reached out to the lever handle, and tried it.
It turned with no resistance and the door inched open.
I listened, but there was no alarm.
My plan had been to sneak around to the front, and get as close to the main entrance as I could before holding my head up high and walking straight in to report that my throat was sore and I needed to be checked for smoke inhalation. That was a common enough complaint after a graduation Ceremony, or so I’d been told, and I figured it would have gotten me into an examination room at least. From there, I could have snuck away when no one was looking and found Saskia.
Not the most laid out plan, but then tactics had never been my strongest class. It would work, and that’s all I had cared about.
But now I had a better way in.
I checked my watch, wishing again for one of the Enforcer’s wristcoms. I’d timed it just right. This would be shift change for the medical staff, which meant they would all be up front getting assignments and being debriefed. I remembered that from my last trip here, when the broken bone had taken three days to set properly. It was now or never.
The door opened soundlessly and I pulled it slowly closed behind me, making sure it made no sound at all as the latch bolt settled back into place. A sign on the door read, in big letters, “Out of Order. Take Main Entrance.”
Sure.
I found myself in an empty room with empty patient beds wrapped in crisp white sheets. Curtains hung from tracks on the ceiling were all pushed aside to the walls. Monitoring equipment was dark and silent.
Perfect.
The door from the room to the hallway opened just as easily as the outer door had. The lights in the ceiling above were on a low setting. This part of the building must be empty. Conserving power was always important here at the Colony. The digital fireworks display from last night had been a grand gesture that we only got to see on special occasions.
Feeling better about my chances I walked quickly down the hallway, peeking into rooms as I went. All empty.
I turned the next corner, picking up my pace.
And came face to face with a tall woman with a stern expression on her dark-skinned face.
Nurse Simmons.
She studied me up and down for a moment, her hands tightening on her data pad, her white jumpsuit stark against the deep, dark brown of her skin. Everyone knew Nurse Simmons. She was a professor at the Academy, too, teaching us the health sciences and all about procreation. Now that had been one embarrassing class.
No one liked Nurse Simmons. She seemed to enjoy it that way.
“Student, what you doing here?” she said to me in her clipped accent. She was originally from an island nation somewhere, and when she felt we needed a stern reminder in class as to why we needed to work toward the future, she would tell us all about the wondrous beauty of her childhood home, in great detail.
Then she would tell us what the Event had done to the people there, to the animals and the plants, to everything.
Sometimes we had all wished Nurse Simmons had been back on the island when the Event happened.
I was kind of wishing that now.
I shrank a bit under her glare, but then I remembered the plan. Standing up tall and straight, I tossed my braid back over my shoulder and met her gaze. “I’m in the Eccoliculum now, if you please. I graduated last night.”
She snorted at that. “You sure? You still wearing the student uniform. Maybe you not graduated, like that other one.”
Saskia. She was talking about Saskia.
I had to clear my throat before I could speak again. “We don’t get our new uniforms until the end of our first day. I have graduated, and I have a right to be here. My friend is here. Saskia Deberin. I want to see my friend. Now.”
“Oh, that’s a fact, is it? You want to be seeing your friend. Well, Miss Graduate,” she addressed me with a little sneer, “there still be things you won’t be getting to do. Bossing me around is one of them things.”
Obviously my plan of just blustering my way inside wasn’t going to work. Not against the likes of Nurse Simmons. She was too certain of her position in the Colony, positive that her rank as Nurse trumped mine as a senior member of the Academy. She wasn’t impressed by me being in the Eccoliculum. If that was the case, then I needed to rethink my approach.
One of the lessons that First Marshall Blake had drummed into us, over and over, was that when you are faced with a superior enemy, you try to use their own tactics against them. It worked with entire armies, or just one opponent, he said.
Like now. If Nurse Blake wanted to throw around her authority and duty to the Colony, then I should let her.
“It is your obligation, Nurse Simmons, to tend to the sick, correct?”
Her expression became tight, suspicion in her eyes. “Yes, that be my function here.”
“Then it is also your job to escort me to Saskia’s room.” I let the words hang for a moment before adding, in a polite voice, “Now will do fine.”
My heart was racing a mile a minute as Nurse Simmons stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Obviously, she wasn’t used to people talking back to her.
I wasn’t used to talking back to people who had been my professor, either. I tried to imagine me talking to First Marshall Blake this way, and the image crumbled immediately. No way.
The taller woman’s hands clenched her data pad harder, and something settled in her brown eyes that I couldn’t quite read. Admiration, maybe, for me standing up to her. Or anger that I’d dared question her. I wasn’t sure.
“Well, Miss Era Rae, you changed overnight, you have.” She didn’t exactly make it sound like a good thing. “At any rate, you no can see your friend now.”
I clenched my hands behind my back to keep them from trembling. “And why not, Nurse Simmons?”
“Because,” she answered, lowering her voice even though no one was around, “Saskia is going to Quarantine soon. She be in secure Observation now. No visitors. We
don’t be wanting disease to spread here at Colony 41, do we? We’d be no better off than Colony 16.”
My heart, so active just five seconds ago, now stopped in my chest. Saskia was going to Quarantine. That meant what First Marshall Blake had told me was true. The burns had caused an infection, and now the medical staff was worried Saskia would spread disease to everyone else if she wasn’t locked away. For the rest of her life. Or…or…
Or killed, I forced myself to finish the thought. Terminated for the good of the Colony.
“I still want to see her,” I tried again, forcing steel into my voice.
Nurse Simmons just tsked and shut down her data pad before turning her attention back to me. “You want all you like. It’s not going to happen. So. You can just turn around now, and go.”
Crossing her arms over her ample chest, she stood like the wall around our Colony, impenetrable and unyielding. I knew if I made any more fuss than I already had then Nurse Simmons would call for help to have me escorted off. The last thing I needed was to have the Enforcers remove me physically from the medical facility. Wouldn’t that look good on my Academy record? No way would Avin Blake look at me after that.
Not to mention, I wouldn’t be doing Saskia any favors, either.
I nodded my head, admitting my defeat, and turned back down the hallway. Nurse Simmons waited, watching me go, until I got to the corner and turned out of her sight.
Immediately flattening myself against the wall I counted to thirty, just like last night when I’d waited in the flames to prove myself worthy of graduating. It was the longest half minute of my life. When I reached the end of my count, I poked my head back out into the hallway.
It was empty. Nurse Simmons was gone.
I smiled to myself, proud of my plan. Simmons had been certain that little Era Rae would follow her orders, like a good Academy member should, like the lost little girl who had first shown up on this island at six years old would have.
Well. Little Era Rae was growing up.
No one was going to keep me from seeing Saskia. Even if I had to do it in secret while hiding from the entire medical staff.
I had no idea where the Observation ward was. When I came here I was to go straight to a patient room and nowhere else. But I knew where those were, and that meant the Observation rooms must be in one of the other two wings.
Simple.
Only, of course, nothing is simple in real life.
I slinked down the corridors, always looking over my shoulder, until I found a directory sign on a wall with a purple arrow pointing to Observation. The lighting was dim here, too, to conserve power. I know that was the real reason, but for the life of me it felt like mood lighting for my inevitable failure.
No. I couldn’t think like that. I needed to find Saskia, and find out what was wrong with her.
The rooms down this corridor were all marked “Caution: Observation, Do Not Enter” and “Medical Staff Only.” There was no one down this section, either, which was odd. The medical staff must be done with their shift change and briefing by now. Where was everyone?
I checked each door as I passed. They were all locked, and I didn’t dare try to hack the pass codes for fear I’d set off an alarm somewhere. I had to settle for peering into the square windows in each door. It didn’t give me much to see. An empty bed with leather restraint straps. Cabinets. Monitoring equipment.
No patients. No doctors. No nurses. Nobody was here.
This was all starting to set my nerves on edge. I should go. I should turn around and leave and let the medical staff take care of Saskia. After all, it was their job to keep her well. If they decided that Observation and then Quarantine was the best for her than that had nothing to do with me…
Only, it did.
I went to the next door, and the next, all with the same results. Empty room, empty room, empty room. I was nearing the end of the hallway when I heard the noise.
It was a soft thump, then another, and another.
The room it was coming from was ahead on my left, two doors down. At the far end of the hallway was a set of double doors opening out to another area but I wasn’t interested in that. I was only interested in those muffled thumps, and what—or who—might be making them.
Still watching behind me as I went, I tiptoed forward, stepping up to the glass window in the door of that room.
Only to see just another empty room, bare and white and sterile with a patient bed built for restraint—
A ruined face slammed against the window, the mouth open, burn marks leaving half her head charred in angry reds and hideous, crisp black.
Saskia.
My stomach turned and I stumbled back. Seeing her like this… now I understood.
Her eyes found me with a look of panic. Her once pretty blonde hair was burned off the top of her scalp, and singed down the sides of her head. The skin on her cheek tore open as she pressed against the glass. Yellowish pus leaked out. Her hands were bandaged, even the fingers, the white wraps stained red.
She beat against the door, against the window, leaving liquidy red streaks where she did. I could hear her screaming my name.
“Saskia, oh my God, Saskia… I’m so sorry.” I came back up to the window, pressing my ear to it, raising my voice so my friend could hear me. “This is my fault. Saskia, I’m… I’m so sorry!”
I felt sick again, and whatever was in my stomach threatened to come out of it, right here on the floor. I couldn’t leave her like this. She needed me. I couldn’t just leave her here. Fear of disease or not, I couldn’t leave my friend like this.
“Hold on,” I called in to her. “I’ll get the door open. I’ll get you out of here.”
She thwacked her bandaged hands against the door, making the same noise I had heard earlier. Her head shook violently. What was left of her hair flew out around her like a broken halo.
No, she mouthed to me, her voice barely audible through the steel door. Get out. You have to get out!
“I’m not leaving you here,” I insisted, popping open the cover of the panel control for the door with a little effort. “Hold on.”
Thump, thump, thump.
I looked up at the window again. Saskia must have found something to stand on, because she raised herself up so that her blue hospital gown was all I could see.
Until she pulled it aside.
Her midsection had been marred by a Y incision and stitched back together. It was a wonder she could stand up with the kind of muscle damage she must have suffered. It extended up to her chest, her bronze skin, and her breasts…
“What happened?” I asked her.
She put her face next to the window again, tears in her eyes, shouting to me.
“Cut me open… took something…” The wreckage of her face screwed up in pain. Blood dribbled out of the side of her mouth. “Doing something… to me. Go, Era. Go!”
“No, I can’t… you’re not well. Let me get someone for you. You need rest and you’ll be all better. That’s all. You just need to rest.”
Tears were in my own eyes, because I knew my words were false. Saskia was going to Quarantine, and in all likelihood she’d be killed after that. Put out of her misery to save the Colony.
But what had happened to her?
I turned back to the control panel, pulling on wires to break connections and arcing power across relays. I didn’t care anymore. My friend was coming home to the 26ers, where she belonged. We would help her. I just needed to get her out.
“Please don’t do that, Era.”
It wasn’t Saskia’s voice. This was the strong voice of a man standing not far away from me in the hallway. In my haste and my disgust at what I’d done to Saskia, I hadn’t noticed First Marshall Blake standing there.
He was ringed by five Enforcers, all in their gray battle suits, all with stun sticks at their left hips and serious expressions on their faces. Their eyes were hidden behind monitor shades, glasses that displayed electronic data and conducted constant scan
s of anywhere they looked.
I had to wonder what they saw when they looked at me.
“First Marshall Blake,” I blurted out. “Please, it’s Saskia, she’s been hurt. We need to help her. She’s hurting so bad. Not from the infection. Someone did something to her—”
“I warned you she was sick,” he interrupted me. With a sad shake of his head he rubbed a hand down his face, over his square jaw. “I’m sorry, Era. We had to do it this way. When Verne told me that you left the campus grounds, I figured you’d try this, but I was really hoping… Well. We needed to be sure about you.”
His words didn’t make any sense to me. “What? No, not me. Saskia. She needs help.”
“And you came here to let her free?” he said, not so much a question as an accusation. “Expose the Colony to her? You were willing to make everyone sick, just so you could save one person.”
“She’s my friend,” I said, as if that made everything all right.
I know what I had been about to do. For Saskia, I’d risk anything.
That’s what friends were supposed to do.
Avin shook his head sadly. The Enforcers around him stepped forward at a wave of his two fingers. It was the signal to advance. I’d seen it dozens of times on the practice grounds.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, suddenly coming to the realization that I was in deeper trouble than I thought. “Professor Blake, please. Help her.”
“Ah, Era,” he sighed. “I had such high hopes for you. You seemed to really understand our purpose here.”
“What… what are you talking about?” The Enforcers moved closer as I tried to wrap my mind around everything Blake was saying. “What in Hellfire is going on here?”
“Language, Era, please. Enforcers…” I heard the hesitation in his voice, like he was deciding whether to go one way with his order, or the other.
Then, he made his decision.