PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
PALLAS STATION
478.2.6.09
At Ross’s statement, I bolted from bed, but my right leg wobbled. I grabbed for the bed rail and misjudged the distance. My knees hit the concrete floor. Gloved hands grabbed me and hoisted me up, and Jackson peered into my eyes.
“Stars, Recorder. What are you thinking? You can’t walk from Pallas to New Triton,” he growled while he set me on the bed and tapped his communications link. “Medical assistance to the quarantine room.”
Shame warmed my face. “You overreact, Jackson.”
He ignored my assertion. Behind him, Ross watched me closely, his forehead creased. Within seconds, the door flew open, cracking against the thick wall.
Williams was at my side, bootless, her hair loose around her shoulders, and a streak of paste trailing from her lower lip. Her tunic flared as she spun from checking the medical display on my headboard to the computer, but when she saw Ross, she gasped.
“You!” She pointed at the door. “Get out!”
He shrugged and pointed his chin at the marine beside him.
Williams rounded on Jackson next. “You brought him in here? Were you even thinking?”
Before he could reply, she activated her communications link and called for Max, Nate, and Jordan. When Jackson planted his feet and crossed his arms, she did as well, a shorter, middle-aged, ash-brown-haired, unarmed, feminine mirror image.
“Williams,” I said. “I am well. It is merely that my leg gave out.”
“We will see about that.” Still facing the marine, she jabbed her finger at the door again. “Out.”
“You do not understand,” I continued. “Julian Ross has information.”
Before she could protest further and before I explained the threat, the door opened again, and again, and again. The room seemed to shrink when Zhen and Jordan, then James and Nate, and finally a bleary-eyed Max entered, but not even Nate’s presence could quell the pressure building in my chest. Arguments swelled around me until a shrill whistle cut through the voices. All eyes turned to Williams, who pulled her fingers from her mouth.
“Get that man out of here,” she repeated, and a nod from Jackson had the two marines unfastening Ross from the chair.
“Stop!” he demanded over his shoulder as they guided him past Freddie’s mural. “Her symptoms—I know what happened.”
Jackson barked an abrupt command, and the marines made a rough pivot so that Elliott’s brother faced Max. “You got medical information, Ross, you tell Maxwell. Now.”
Julian Ross straightened. Even injured, he towered over the men on either side. “Nothing showed up when you scanned her.”
Only the air filtration system answered him.
“Check for shells.”
The quieter marine began, “What do dead bodies have to do—”
“Not that kind,” Ross said rudely but quickly, as if he were afraid they would pull him out of the room before he finished. “Nanites.”
“Nanodevices are small,” Williams argued. “The size of a virus. They would be eliminated through normal means.”
“Yes, normally.” Ross focused on Max. “But Christine designed them to link with Consortium tech. You know there were two parts?”
“Go on,” Nate said, his green eyes like lasers drilling into the taller man.
“They link up with nanites specific to Recorders. Christine designed them to release the virus when all three nanites are present. It was a safeguard.” He lowered his head. “We didn’t know that citizens carried the same devices in their blood. I still have no idea why Consortium tech is present.”
Max and Williams exchanged glances, and she folded her arms. “Which is why it works faster on members of the Consortium.”
“The more nanites,” Max growled, “the faster the release.”
Ross avoided their glares and focused on me. “I don’t know for certain, but after they injected my brother, they made me study Elliott’s blood. The nanites keep linking up, even after the virus is free. Theoretically, if you had fewer Consortium nanites, it wouldn’t be a big problem because they’d be flushed out in time. You, however, are a Recorder. You must have had enough of them in your system that the clump was big enough to act as a clot.”
“The medicomputer cleared her,” Jackson argued.
Max’s eyelid twitched. “It’s a machine, limited by programming. It wouldn’t search for nanite shells, only for viruses, bacteria, plaque.”
“This,” I said, “is not the important thing.”
They all turned to me.
Nate’s gloved fingers tightened about mine. “How is that unimportant?”
“Julian Ross,” I said, motioning to my friends with my free hand, “tell them.”
The man held his breath for two seconds, then said, “They’re going to destroy the Consortium Training Centers.”
The others grew eerily still as Julian Ross elaborated on plans to use EM cannons to disable the drones so it would be easy to murder any Recorders present. To destroy the tanks which nurtured the newest giftings, to eliminate the little ones and novices, and to slip the altered technology into the water supply as soon as they could utilize the adjustments Ross had labored over.
Protests filled the room. James went ashen, and Zhen touched his shoulder. He did not seem to notice.
“You’re still working for them?” Jordan demanded.
Julian Ross’s brow knotted, and he kept his gaze on me. “Elliott asked me not to.”
Williams pursed her lips. “Yet you did.”
“You don’t understand.” Ross’s temper flared. “I did my best to disable the spacing thing without them knowing, but I didn’t have the right equipment.”
Jackson swore.
“I can now, though,” Ross continued. “I remember everything I did. If I could have access to—”
“Void take you, you vile, drossing—” Zhen’s cheeks flamed. “You think anyone will let you near something as high tech as a spoon for the rest of your voided life? I hope they recycle you.”
No one contradicted her. Nate’s jaw ticced. Max set a hand on Jordan’s arm, and she shifted toward him.
I managed, “What matters is that we discover how to protect and prevent attacks. If possible, I recommend allowing Ross to try to undo the damage.”
Ross locked his icy gaze on me, but a flush rose in his cheeks. “I’ve said it before, Recorder, but I underestimated you.”
“She’s not a Recorder,” Jordan said.
James spoke for the first time, his deep, rich voice a heavy monotone. “Jackson. Remove him.”
“Oh, he’ll be removed soon enough,” the marine said with such force that at first I thought he had cursed.
He and the marines tugged Ross away. The door shut, and I slumped back onto my bed.
“So what do we do?” Nate asked.
“We notify the Consortium as soon as possible,” I said. “They must have a defensive plan in place.”
“Yes, yes, whatever,” Zhen said. “But what do we do, Max?”
“I don’t know yet.” Max pulled off his helmet and set it on the desk that used to hold Kyleigh’s computer. “The first step will be taking her up to Thalassa—”
“Inadvisable,” Williams said. She turned to Nate. “Tell them what you told me.”
“Indeed,” James said.
The door opened again, and Daniel and Yrsa strode in.
“We were delayed,” she began. “It seems—”
“Moons and stars.” Zhen snorted. “Anyone else coming?”
The latecomers exchanged glances.
“No,” Daniel said slowly. “Why?”
“Tell them, Timmons,” Williams insisted.
Nate closed his eyes. “When they took Edwards, they left another doctor.”
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Jordan said. “Maybe you can finally get some rest, Max—” Her cheeks darkened, and she stopped abruptly.
Williams wrapped her arms around her waist. “A Recorder.”
“A Recorder or a doctor?” Max asked. “Which?”
James answered, “Both in one.”
Venetia Jordan’s heightened color vanished. “Recorders can be doctors? Isn’t that inherently biased?”
“Medicine is science,” I said.
“The Consortium has to have medical personnel,” Williams explained. “Maintaining the gifting tanks, implanting neural chips, routine health, removal of . . . of organs in the Hall of Reclamation.”
Max sat heavily on the stool. “And they don’t want citizens to have access to their technology.”
“But they have staff,” Jordan protested.
Williams gave a short nod. “While we trained with Consortium doctors, staff are not allowed to obtain degrees. We are trained to be outsourced at reduced costs to citizens, enabling us to support the Consortium and earn back our gifting.”
“Recorder-doctors are stationed at Training Centers and central hubs,” James said. “This one must have been assigned to Krios Platform Forty-One, which I believe to be the closest Center. Sending a doctor would be a logical choice, if there was the chance that any member of the Consortium might require medical care.”
Jordan’s eyes flashed. “With a Recorder-doctor onboard, she’s not going up to Thalassa.”
“I concur,” Williams added. “They will take her as they took Edwards.”
“What other option is there?” Zhen demanded.
After a moment of silence, Jordan straightened to her full height. Her jaw tensed, and she said deliberately, “She can stay here.”
Everyone except Nate began talking at once.
Zhen’s soprano rose above the chorus of protests. “Don’t be stupid, J. She can’t. Thalassa will leave, and she’d be alone. She can’t even fire a gun. Those bugs would finish her off in no time at all.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I said, somehow offended even though she was correct.
“While a station-wide jammer is all well and good for the Consortium,” she argued, “it means nothing when the station is overrun with bugs.”
“She won’t be alone,” Jordan said.
Nate tightened his hold on my hand. “No, she won’t. I’ll stay with her.”
Jordan folded her arms. “I don’t suggest the solution lightly. I’m staying, too.”
“It might not be a bad plan,” Daniel said. “The station-wide jammer works.”
“It does.” James offered me a slight smile. “We turned off the small ones, and I activated my drone.”
Max paled, but Yrsa responded before Max. “You didn’t!”
James inclined his head. “A calculated risk. We needed to ascertain that the station would be a sanctuary, as proposed.”
“So I’ll stay, too,” Daniel said. “We’ll hide her. You can charter a ship and swing back around to pick us up next year. She’ll be safer.”
Zhen gaped. “Safer? With the roaches? And a rogue drone on the loose?”
“You saw the carnage that drone wreaked.” Jordan nodded at me. “It’ll protect her.”
“Who knows where it is,” Zhen snapped. “Sure it took out those roaches, but you also saw the wreckage of the drone she sent to protect Michaelson and Daniel. Besides, its power can’t last forever.”
For a split second, I had the vision of the Elder’s rogue drone hunting roaches, avenging him until every roach was dead and dust. I almost smiled at the thought, but the horror of lying against that pulsing abdomen stopped me. Bile rose in my throat.
“She can’t.” Max’s eyes were like brown lasers. “Staying on Pallas doesn’t address her medical issues. Whether or not Ross was telling the truth, we need to get her in the medicomputer.”
“Not after Edwards,” Williams countered. “She cannot risk returning to the ship.”
I squared my shoulders. “I will go.”
Daniel straightened. “Tell you all what. I’ll go up first.”
“You cannot,” I objected. “Not if there is a Recorder with a drone on Thalassa. The personal jamming field is meters wide, and the field’s radius will betray you. You still have a neural implant, and the Recorder-doctor could discover a way to activate the chip and retrieve your memories.”
“That’s fixable,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Recorders rarely get within an arm’s length from citizens. You can shrink the radius.”
Panic laced through me. I could not alter its range, not when I could not even read Nate’s note.
Zhen pulled a navy-blue datapad from her thigh pocket and handed it to me. “He’s right about that.”
My fingertips traced the three long cracks radiating from the upper right corner.
“I spotted it while we were chasing after you,” she said, “and it’s a good thing I did. I used it to command the drones to set you both down.”
I tilted my face to the ceiling and closed my eyes. “Indeed.”
Zhen tapped my arm. “You make that word work too hard.”
The datapad was no longer of any use to me, so I extended it to her. “You keep it.”
“I don’t know your password.”
“You should. You gave it to me before I left Thalassa the first time.” Despite the whole situation—viruses, roaches, the Consortium—a smile tugged at my lips. “Chrysanthemum.”
“Moons and stars, Max,” Zhen said. “She’s handing out passwords like Festival candy. How hard did she hit her head?”
“I took no injury to my head. It is as well that you all know, in case . . .” But I could not finish the thought.
“Fine.” Her reply rushed like falling water. “I’ll do it, though I still don’t see how Daniel going up first is of any help.”
“My citizen identity is forged,” Daniel said matter-of-factly. “With a Recorder on board, if I don’t get hauled off to who knows where, we will know she succeeded.”
“That puts you in danger, Dan,” Yrsa protested.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “If the Recorder-doctor takes me, they can both stay on Pallas. The rest of you can fake their deaths and smuggle them out later.”
James broke his long silence. “You will not be sacrificed on my behalf.”
Daniel clapped him on the shoulder in a fair approximation of the gestures I had seen among the marines. “Can and will, but I trust her.” He met my eyes. “You’ve found a way to keep us safe before. My trip will prove James and you can go up. It is one less infraction for you to worry about.”
One less thing, indeed. “While I appreciate your offer to hide me, the Consortium must hear Julian Ross’s warnings. They must know of the potential attacks. As a Recorder, it is more likely that the doctor will listen to me. I will go.”
Not even my Nathaniel could convince me to change my mind.