PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
CTS THALASSA
478.2.6.04
Cam and Nate escorted me into the infirmary, where Alec waved from a hoverbed by the door. I left the drone outside the temporary vestibule beside the medicomputer and removed my suit. Edwards donned his orange hood before joining me in a small area sectioned off with sheeting. I heard Cam and Nate speaking to Alec in undertones while Edwards drew several vials of blood.
As it had last time, the sight of the closet-like medicomputer’s metallic door sent a trickle of fear down my spine. Feeling oddly exposed, I padded on stockinged feet into its red-lit interior, reminding myself that the medicomputer itself was not a threat. No one here—not even the drone—intended me ill. I whispered to myself that all would be well, that there was no danger, but my fingers tightened around the bed’s railing.
Edwards closed the door, and the lock clicked.
I focused on the warm red light and began reciting prime numbers, but when the machine’s clicks began, panic jabbed sharp claws through my chest. Oxygen seemed to vanish. Each gasp burned my throat and brought another clash of pain. The machine’s alarm blared in my ears, and beyond that, men shouted.
The alarm ceased abruptly when the door flew open. Long tendrils grabbed me and pulled me out of the narrow closet and into the air. I struggled, but the drone’s grip grew tighter. It lofted me higher. Sweat beaded on my upper lip, and tears oozed down my face. The room swam, dizziness engulfed me, and I clamped my eyes shut.
Sound edged past the roar of my pulse in my ears and the drone’s whine.
“Put her down,” Nate demanded crisply. “No one is going to harm her.”
Edwards echoed Nathaniel’s assertion, and strangely, the drone complied, lowering me to the floor. I huddled in a fetal position while a rush of air and sound told me the drone shot its arms around me like a cage.
“What is that drone doing?” Cam seemed to choke on the words.
“I do not know. Neither do I know what went wrong. She did not have a problem before that Elder took her away.” Edwards’s voice softened as he added, “I apologize, Recorder. I forgot that you had a difficult time the last time we used the medicomputer, but I assure you: nothing has gone amiss.”
I peeked through damp lashes. Edwards crouched near me, Nate behind him. Cam stood rigid at Alec’s bedside, and Alec’s gloveless hand gripped Cam’s arm, while his bed sang gentle alarms.
Edwards glanced at the drone. “Release her so she may have treatment.”
One long arm retreated, opening my cage. When Nate took a step forward, however, it pounded back down.
“Wait, Timmons.” Edwards held out his hand, and his pale-blue eyes found mine. “I know you know, deep within, that it is well. Perhaps, if you could tell the drone?”
Recognizing the truth in his request, I tapped the drone’s polymer underbelly, and two legs retreated. Ignoring the proffered hand, I scooted out, but when I stood on wobbly legs, the world spun. My vision blurred. Tendrils reached for me, but someone shoved them aside and caught me when I dropped. My fingers curled around black fabric as a jet injector popped, and the scents of lavender and pine washed through me. My eyes closed, my breathing slowed, and my muscles relaxed.
The belief that everything would be—already was—fine wrestled with the knowledge that something was wrong. The scent of pine, internal and external, began to override the panic lodged in my chest. Someone was in danger, but either lassitude or contentment—perhaps both—stole the impetus to act.
“Over here, Timmons.” Edwards’s voice echoed as if he spoke through a long tube.
I was lowered into a chair where I slumped against the armrests.
Men continued to debate my state of being and possible overmedication, but I simply did not care. The whir of a drone approached, but the warm, strong hand that held mine did not let go. I forced heavy lids up to see Nate kneeling before me.
“What’s going on?” He gave my fingers a faint squeeze.
Warm haziness kept me from answering, but my Nathaniel was here. Everything would be fine.
“I think I know, sir,” Cam said hesitantly. “There was an . . . incident on Agamemnon.”
“What happened?” Nate asked, his gaze still holding mine.
“One of the engineers locked her in the medicomputer. He thought she carried the virus, so he tried to override safety protocols to start a cleaning cycle.”
Nate pivoted toward Cam. Even though Cam’s stammered recitation of the events seemed to be about someone else, my apprehension flared. Had that truly happened? Would I not be more concerned, if it had?
Alec growled a curse.
“And you never thought to tell anyone?” Edwards demanded.
“You’re right. I should have. But when we came aboard, the processing officer in the shuttle said not to talk about Agamemnon, that the information was the Consortium’s. We all had to sign waivers,” Cam explained. “The man died back on Agamemnon. It’s on record, sir, since the Elder was there.”
Nate cupped my face with his hand, his thumb lingering on my cheekbone, and for a moment I leaned against his palm. He growled, “I suppose that’s something to be grateful to the Elder for.”
Footsteps approached, and Edwards asked me if I thought I could manage the medicomputer again. “We’ll talk you through it, like Max and I did last time.”
Summoning all my energy, I forced out, “Not alone.”
In near unison, Alec, Cam, and Nate said, “You aren’t.”
The effects of whatever medication Edwards had given me receded while I was in the medicomputer, but it was not until I was on a hoverbed that I realized I was not in a suit. Panic chased away rest. People had touched me, and sheeting no longer separated me from the rest of the infirmary. Additionally, I had held Nate’s bare hand with the drone present. Our interactions had been recorded.
Too late, my insufficient hands covered my mouth.
Edwards turned abruptly from his computer. He glanced at my bed’s readout, then slid a datapad from a capacious orange pocket. “You are awake, finally.”
Nate shifted in the chair beside my bed, and on the other side, the drone rose seven centimeters at his movement.
Alec rolled over to watch me. Next to the infirmary doors, Cam grinned. No one save Edwards wore orange, and not even he wore headgear. I could not understand such laxity.
“Edwards, it is unsafe. I am not in my suit.” My voice, muffled by my hands, faltered.
“You are not.” A half smile flashed briefly. “The medicomputer declared you virus-free.”
Relief hit me in a wave, and my hands dropped. “I am not contagious?”
“Indeed not. Your symptoms are not due to the bioweapon.” Without making eye contact, he tapped a few notes on the datapad.
Nate studied his fingers. “You’ve been out of it for a while. You’ll need to suit up again once the shuttle arrives. Attlee should be here in about four hours, and we need to get you well below the surface if we’re to keep you safe.”
Uneasiness edged through me, but the timeline was not my primary concern. “Edwards,” I began, “to what are my symptoms due, if not to the bioweapon?”
Nate leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and his eyes rose to Edwards. “It’s a good question.”
“Not to the virus.” Edwards heaved a sigh. “But when Kyleigh gets here, I’m having her take a look at your blood.”
That was as forthcoming as he was, no matter how Nate or I pressed for information. Edwards handed me another vile, green, fizzy drink, even though I told him I would rather take my calories and nutrition through protein bars and supplements. I tried not to gag as I drank as fast as I could.
“Alec,” I ventured after finishing the beverage. He looked over, but no smile lit his features as he stared past me at the drone. “You are healing?”
“Yeah.” His hand rose to the deep black and purple bruising showing above his medical gown’s V-neck. “Swallowing hurts a bit, but I can breathe, which is always good.”
“It is.”
“Been thinking a lot about things I should have done.” His chocolate-brown gaze drifted from me to Nate to the ceiling. “At least between Archimedes and that rotted Elder, Zhen and I renewed our contract before we left. Should have taken a longer one, but I also should have made sure that my father’s debt wasn’t linked to her. She shouldn’t be burdened with it if I . . .” His focus latched onto the light fitting in the center of the infirmary. “That box. Should’ve opened it years ago. Could’ve died without knowing what’s in it.”
Though I had no knowledge of any box, I protested, “But you did not die.”
“No.” He fingered his blanket’s hem. “Nate.”
Beside me, my Nathaniel startled but said nothing about Alec’s use of his nickname.
“I want that box, the one I’ve been carting around since my mother’s accident. Zhen’s on the shuttle, right?”
Nate nodded.
“Once everyone finishes debriefing, can you bring her here?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to force her to come,” Nate said with a lopsided smile. “But sure.”
Alec regarded him steadily. “I should never have stopped calling you Nate. Mama never did, and she was usually right.”
“Yeah. She was.”
Alec turned to me. “Someday, I’ll show you a picture of my sister.”
A knot rose in my throat. “Arianna.”
“You remind me of her, once in a while.” His long exhale was almost a sigh. “Stars, but I miss her.”
The infirmary’s quiet was undergirded by the circulation fans’ thrum, the centrifuge’s click, the medtanks’ burble, and the constant whir of the drone.
The drone.
It would document Alec’s regret over his shattered family, which could place him at risk. I pushed away the thin, white cotton blanket and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Nate asked.
“You said the shuttle will arrive soon.”
“There was a delay. Issues in coordinating departure and arrival without comms. It’s about thirty minutes out.”
“When it arrives, we will leave immediately?”
“As immediately as possible, yes.”
I could not tell him the whole truth, which was not, I assured myself, the same thing as lying. “I have work to do, and the best place to do it will be my old computer laboratory. First, however, I must return to the Elder’s quarters to leave it tidy and retrieve equipment to repair the drones on Pallas.”
“Repair the . . .” Nate studied my face. “Let me guess. You don’t need my company for that.”
“Indeed.”
“Too bad.” Nathaniel grimaced as he stood. “Cam? You ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nate,” Alec spoke up again. “You’ll get Zhen? And that box?”
“I promise.”
“If you are carrying off linens and clothing, you will need this.” Edwards handed me an empty duffel bag.
We left the infirmary, Nate on my right, Cam on my left, and the drone behind me. They remained outside while I changed the sheets and removed every bit of evidence that I had been in the Elder’s quarters, including the microdatacard in the headboard and any information saved in the headboard’s memory. After verifying that the network remained down, I took Lorik’s repair kit, but paused at the door, eyeing the empty frame.
“What does it say?” I asked aloud.
The datapad buzzed, and I read, >>Clarify.
“The daily aphorism.”
>>Shed the past as a snake sheds its skin, and so conquer the inner chaos that breeds fear.
“That is hardly helpful,” I protested.
>>Interpretations available upon request.
“I do not need one.”
It would have been injudicious at best to tell the drone that it was shedding the past that provoked my fear.