My Next Breath

by Shannon McKenna

  He switched the recorder on again and asked, “What is the name you’ve been using?”

  Again, that complacent smile. “I don’t remember,” D-14 said again.

  “Then what is the name your brother D-13 is using?” His voice got louder.

  D-14 shook his head dreamily. “I have no fucking idea. Swear to God.”

  Agitated, Braxton got the sensors and the interface hologram machine synched, and peered into the 3-D holographic image of D-14’s brain projected in the air over the device. It took a while to calm down enough to read the patterns and spot the anomaly.

  When it came into focus, he was astonished and confused.

  A part of D-14’s cerebral cortex appeared to be damaged. Some indistinct lesion that had not been there the previous times he’d done this scan. It looked like the result of illness or trauma, but there had been none. At least none he’d witnessed.

  D-14 must have done this to himself deliberately. He wasn’t refusing to give the information, because on Finurol, he couldn’t refuse. So he’d made sure that he genuinely had no access to it. He’d damaged his own brain. Out of spite.

  Braxton leaned back from the holographic interface and looked at the peculiar smile on D-14’s face. “You sack of shit,” he said. “I’m going to kill you.”

  D-14’s eyebrows quirked up. “Go for it,” he rasped. “Do it now.”

  “Fuck you. I’m in no rush,” Braxton said. “In fact, I’ll make it last until you’re begging me to end it. And I’ll film the high points. When I find the people you care about, I’ll make them watch.”

  D-14’s smile did not waver. He’d won this round and he knew it.

  Oh, fuck this whole place. He wanted out of this snowbound hellhole. He had to get D-14 to his own lab in the Nevada desert. Transporting him was risky, but he needed his state-of-the-art work environment, not this improvised bullshit. And now that the drugs had been delivered, he could do it without delay.

  Though he’d miss the cage that Mark Olund had designed. Mark himself would be unable to escape that thing. Too bad it wasn’t transportable.

  If D-14 gave him any more trouble, Braxton would just melt his brain down with Trib-Theta and work with whatever lingered on life support. Fuck him too.

  Getting ready was a hell of a job. He had to maneuver D-14 on his cot into the big elevator that opened into the front room. Move one of the heavy transport pods up. Rig a ramp for the vehicle for loading, process relevant data, clear all signs of his own presence away. Infuriating that he couldn’t use D-14 for the grunt work.

  It took hours. When he finally dragged D-14’s cot out of the elevator, he topped him up with another 15 mcg of Finurol. D-14 just lay there, gazing up at the picture window that opened out onto the big deck. Snowflakes fluttered down.

  Braxton studied the man, wondering if he trusted the Finurol enough to forgo the stun code, unfasten the restraints, and command D-14 to get into the pod. Stringy and lean as he was, D-14 was hard to move, with his reinforced bones and dense muscle tissue. Nearly impossible to lift. He was almost tempted to risk it.

  But Braxton had always been the one back in the day who’d insisted on control coding, for security. He’d never gotten sloppy. Now was not the time to start.

  He could still do some heavy lifting.

  Braxton ripped sensors off D-14’s shaven head and seized the man’s bearded jaw. He jerked his face around and glared straight into D-14’s eyes.

  “Listen, shitstain,” he said. “Do exactly as I say, or I will dissolve your useless brain with Trib-Theta right now and flush you down the toilet. Straighten your body. Arms at your sides. Legs together. Stiff as a board. Do it. Now.”

  D-14 blinked slowly a few times and complied.

  Hey. Maybe the extra dose had helped.

  Braxton leaned down, still staring into the other man’s eyes. “Calliope. Banner. Ibex,” he said loudly.

  D-14 went rigid. All good.

  He quickly unfastened the restraints on D-14’s ankles and wrists, monitoring the other man’s racing heartbeat. No big deal and no more than a predictable response to the stun code. His breathing was constricted, since eighty percent of the muscles used to breathe had been locked. Not all of them, or he’d die. Braxton had left just enough rib flexibility to stay alive. But not comfortable.

  Braxton’s Boys didn’t need comfort.

  D-14 was now completely unbuckled, motionless except for the tremor of tension from his locked muscles.

  Braxton huffed and heaved to get the heavy transport pod positioned next to the cot. He’d tip D-14 into it, let him fall however he fell, and to hell with the sensors. As long as the oxygen mask was over his face, he’d be fine.

  He stopped and took a brief moment to rest his sore fingers. His latest serum needed tweaking. It wasn’t working at all anymore. But he’d fix that, once he was back in his lab. He’d see results within probably hours of synthesizing—

  Pain exploded in his face. He reeled back with a startled shout.

  D-14 had punched him! Shock immobilized him for a split second.

  “Calliope! Banner! Ibex!” he howled. “Calliope! Banner! Ibex! Calliope! Banner! Ibex!”

  D-14 sat up. Just like that.

  Braxton scrambled backwards, groping for the gun in his boot holster.

  “Calliope! Banner! Ibex!” he screamed again.

  D-14 made no sign that he heard.

  That was the key. It wasn’t just memories that D-14 had mysteriously compromised. He’d deafened himself. He’d beaten the stun code and the Finurol, in one day. That sneaky son of a bitch.

  Braxton shot at D-14 as the man slid off the cot and moved toward him. The bullet punched a hole in the white wall opposite. Another bullet ricocheted off something metal. Another disintegrated a lamp.

  He shot again and the picture window shattered into a huge, explosive rain of glass. Icy wind and snow swirled into the room.

  D-14 didn’t flinch. His nose bled and his eyes burned, but he came on.

  Braxton shot again and hit D-14 in the shoulder. He staggered, but still lurched forward. He squeezed off another shot. The last one.

  A hit to the arm. D-14 hesitated as blood trickled down, dripping off his fingers.

  Braxton’s ammo magazine was empty. The pale gray carpet was splotched with red that the flying snow was beginning to cover, driven inside by the fierce wind.

  Braxton dove for the syringe he had left on the sideboard and backed up as D-14 drove him toward the open, shattered picture window.

  He wanted to shove that needle full of Trib-Theta into that asshole. Hard. See D-14’s shocked eyes in that sweet moment when he knew he’d been fucked, but before the darkness descended forever.

  Then he’d hook up what was left of the brute to life support. Cut his losses.

  He brandished the needle and backed onto the deck, which protruded out over the valley and had a forty-foot drop to the stony ground below.

  D-14 kept shuffling after him into the snow over the chunks of glass, leaving bloody footprints on the white snow.

  The wind howled. D-14 was barefoot, feet sliced up, naked to the waist, deaf, cognitively impaired, wounded by bullets. He would lose. He was staggering, at the end of his strength, hunched and shaking. Going into shock.

  Braxton positioned the syringe in his hands, gauging the distance, the necessary force. He lunged at the wounded man with a shout.

  The world spun. His legs were swept from under him. The syringe flew up high, turning and turning against the white sky and floating snow.

  With a hoarse cry, D-14 drove Braxton toward the edge of the deck.

  Crack. Their combined momentum broke the wooden handrail.

  They sailed out into the empty white void together.

  Chapter 14

  The waiting room at Fayette’s medical practice was large and crowded. Simone sat in a chair next to the table of magazines, flipping through a stupid article about decorating beach houses. She missed her smar
tphone. If she had it, she could do some minor research while she was waiting. Or answer emails.

  Anything to hide from the way this place made her feel.

  She regretted eating breakfast. The excellent coffee and cinnamon rolls that Zade had left for her had seemed like a great idea at the time, but the happy floating hormone buzz was gone. She was back on the ground now, facing stark reality.

  Reality really messed with her digestion.

  The fears that had been dominating her thoughts lately were filling her head again, all the more intense after a night of relief. They were rolling right over her.

  She remembered Mom’s illness with crystal clarity. Mom had tried to be brave and positive, but as time went on, she hadn’t been able to hide the fatigue, the headaches. The inner noise that got worse and worse. She’d been only a few years older than Simone was now when her symptoms began.

  They had gotten worse very quickly.

  The talisman flashed through her mind. She glommed right onto it, visualizing Zade’s dark eyes, which saw something in her that she’d never known was there. Something strong. A shining place in the center, where she could just be.

  It kept her from panicking. The pain and buzz in her head was back, but it wasn’t as bad now that she’d learned the trick of pushing it away.

  She wished Megan were there. Her friend’s quirky sense of humor would be the perfect secret weapon in a moment like this. At least she’d gotten that quick call in this morning. She hadn’t gone into much detail about her night of mad passion, since Megan had been working. Just hints, muffled laughter. Teasing. For a while, it had almost taken her mind off what she had to do this morning.

  Still and all, it was lucky that Zade had gotten his last minute work call. That gave them both a plausible out. Zade was her fantasy lover. Best to keep it that way.

  How well-timed that encounter had been. No matter what Dr. Fayette told her today, she had one absolutely amazing night to remember.

  She smoothed the new jacket draped across her lap. She’d stopped at the mall before she came here, not about to walk into this appointment dressed in last night’s wrinkled, mud-stained rags. Dr. Fayette would conclude that her mental degeneration had already begun.

  She’d picked up jeans, shoes, and a coat. Pretty underwear, too. And an aqua blue sweater of raw silk knit, soft and clingy. The brightest color she’d worn in months. She’d changed in the mall bathroom and shoved the old stuff into a wheeled container left in a corner by the cleaning crew. Her hair was braided loosely back.

  All in all, presentable. But somehow different. Even without makeup, her color was high, and her eyes looked … well, just different. She couldn’t pinpoint it.

  She had bruises from the mugging, and a few from romping in bed. Even just sitting there was stimulating to her sensitized lady-parts, providing a second-by-second reminder of what she’d been up to all night long. Like she needed one.

  Damn. If a woman had to receive a death sentence, this was the state she should be in. Marked by a night of fabulous sex. Lips hot pink from wild kissing, eyes shadowy from sleeplessness and hot with excitement. Her breasts felt so conscious of themselves in the perky new bra. She had actual fingermarks on her ass from being held by the hips and pounded from behind by his big, thick cock.

  Now she was getting all squirmy and breathless and distracted. None of the other patients in the waiting room seemed to notice, fortunately. Too busy thumbing through the dog-eared magazines and chatting with each other.

  She pulled out the burner phone she’d bought at a drugstore and started struggling with the molded plastic packaging.

  “Great. So I got back here in time.”

  Zade’s voice. Simone looked up, shocked.

  She’d already begun to rationalize away his gorgeousness. Told herself she had to be exaggerating. Embroidering the memory.

  She hadn’t. Not at all.

  “How did you find me?” she asked in a low voice. A few of the other women waiting perked up at the sight of him. “I didn’t tell you where I was going.”

  “You mentioned the doctor’s name. I just looked him up using a super-secret laptop function modality.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. It’s called the search bar.” He slid into the seat beside her, looking windblown and pleased with himself.

  Her heart thudded heavily against her ribs. “Zade, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “I missed you,” he said. “I didn’t want to wait around for you to call me. In case you didn’t.” His grin carved deep, beautiful grooves into his cheeks and around his eyes.

  “I would have,” she said. “But now’s a bad time. I’m, ah … not at my best.”

  “You look good to me. Although that’s not why I’m here. I just want to sit with you while you wait.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss to her knuckles. “And after, I’ll drive you home. Or take you out to buy a smartphone and then get you some lunch. Whatever you’re in the mood for. Just let me be here with you. Please.”

  “Brightman?”

  Simone swiveled her head. A young woman in green scrubs stood at the door to the inner offices and exam rooms, holding a medical chart against her chest.

  “Okay. Here I go.”

  He nodded and kissed her hand again. “Good luck.”

  His smile was heart-squeezingly beautiful, and that wave of ridiculous joy scared her to death. Like she didn’t have enough to be scared of right now.

  Aw, fuck it. “Come in with me,” she said, on impulse.

  He got to his feet and took her hand without a word.

  The medical assistant showed them into an office and settled them into two chairs which faced a huge desk. She laid a medical chart on the desk and gave them a smile. “The doctor will be with you in just a couple minutes,” she said.

  When she left, Zade shifted his chair until his leg was pressed against hers. It felt warm and hard. Thrumming with vital energy.

  The door opened a few moments later. A middle-aged woman sidled in, wearing a nurse’s badge pinned to flower-patterned scrubs that clashed with her messy red hair. She pushed her hair away from her face as she glanced nervously behind herself.

  “Are you Simone Brightman?” Her voice sounded hushed and strangled when she turned to look at them both.

  “Uh, yes,” Simone said.

  The woman’s eyes darted back to the door as she took a step closer. “Listen up. I don’t have much time. I just wanted to tell you that Dr. Fayette isn’t—”

  The door burst open and a tall blond woman in a lab coat bustled in, stopping short when she saw the redheaded nurse. “Can I help you with something?”

  The nurse backed toward the door, flustered. “Ah, no. I was, uh, just looking for a patient’s chart,” she mumbled.

  “Did you find the one you needed?” The doctor’s voice was pleasant. “There’s a stack of charts on the table by the door.”

  “No. I think I have the wrong name.” The woman ducked out the door.

  The doctor frowned after her, then pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped swiftly onto it. Then she turned to them, smiling with large white teeth.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, holding out her hand from Simone to shake. “I’m Dr. Kenner. You’re Ms. Brightman, I take it?” She held out her hand to Zade. “And you are … ?”

  He shook it with a bland smile. “Smith,” he said. “I’m a friend.”

  Dr. Kenner waited for more. Her smile wavered slightly when more was not forthcoming. She sat down at the desk and flipped open the chart.

  “Is there some mistake?” Simone asked. “My appointment this morning was with Dr. Fayette.”

  “Yes, I know.” Dr. Kenner’s smile dimmed. “Unfortunately, Dr. Fayette is not available. I’ll be taking his place.”

  Simone’s guts clenched. So there would be more agonized waiting. “I wasn’t aware of that. I’d rather reschedule.”

  “Actually, that won’t be poss
ible,” Dr. Kenner said. “At least not with Dr. Fayette. If I may be frank, he won’t be back to this practice, I’m afraid. Or any practice.”

  “But what happened to him?”

  The woman’s lips pursed. “Well, I can’t say too much, but let me just ask you this. When Dr. Fayette called you about your test, did he mention the possibility of serious abnormalities?”

  “Yes,” Simone admitted. “He said that the results were unusual, and that he needed to talk to me in person. He refused to discuss them on the phone. So I scheduled an appointment as soon as I could.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Kenner said. “The thing is, Dr. Fayette has been—I don’t know quite how to put this—behaving oddly. You’re not the first patient who’s been called in to discuss abnormal test results. But most, like you, are in fact perfectly healthy. The only alarming news I have today is that Dr. Fayette appears to be mentally unbalanced. And he’s been frightening his patients with fabricated diagnoses.”

  Simone stared at the woman, stunned. “Fabricated … ?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re saying that my test results are normal?”

  “Exactly. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Dr. Kenner’s gleaming smile just wouldn’t quit.

  The woman was clearly waiting for her to express her tremendous relief, but Simone didn’t. There was something she wasn’t being told. She was sure of it.

  She glanced over at Zade. He met her eyes. His neutral expression didn’t reveal much. There was just a faint crease of perplexity between his brows.

  But she felt the intense quality of his attention as he studied Dr. Kenner.

  “Where are the test results?” Simone asked. “May I see them?”

  “Not yet,” Kenner said quickly. “But soon. We don’t want to confuse you or any other patients with altered data. However, the most important part of your test was done correctly. I reviewed it myself and I can assure you that you don’t have the gene mutation that causes Frey-Moller disease.”

  “That’s great,” Simone said. “It’s just that I can’t relax until I know what’s causing my symptoms.”