Vick is terrifying.
VICK’S BODY slumps against the raft flooring, her taut muscles slackening as she loses consciousness. I shoot a concerned glance at Alex, but he isn’t paying attention to me, all his focus on the mediscanner in his hands. Since he’s not panicking, I take a deep breath and let it out, seeking internal calm.
I’m not finding it.
The damage to her exterior is extreme, mostly to her face and head, though her hands have suffered as well. The entire right side of her skull is now uncovered burnished metal, a protrusion of circuitry where the ear had been, crossing forward over her right cheek, then patchy bits of fake skin that eventually rejoin organic flesh slightly more than halfway across her nose and mouth. Her right eye has no lid, no covering at all, but it’s dulled like a faint haze covers the lens, indicating its inactivity. The left one is closed. She must not have been able to tell the difference, that one could actually close and the other couldn’t, or she would have been reaching for that too.
Thank God I didn’t allow her to touch her face.
A few remaining strands of hair have dropped to cover the mechanism of her right eye. When I go to brush them away, they tear off in my hand, along with a swath of artificial scalp, revealing even more metal replacing the crown of her skull as well. I stare at the fake flesh, then with an involuntary cry, hurl it away from me into the lake.
Lyle’s hand falls on my shoulder. “Steady, Kelly,” he says. “They’ll fix her.”
Fix, not heal. Staring at the atrocity of humanity lying before me, I can’t bring myself to correct him.
No. This is Vick. No matter what she looks like on the outside, it’s her heart, her spirit, her soul. And she’s going to need more convincing of that than ever before, especially if she catches a glimpse of her current condition.
I push to my feet. “Let’s get moving.” To punctuate my statement, more rumbling crashes sound from across the lake, closer than before.
Robert and Lyle lift Vick’s unconscious form, Robert taking the feet and Lyle the shoulders. I note that the OWL keeps his eyes on her undamaged legs the entire time.
“They’re prosthetics,” I admonish him as we step from the raft and plod down the dock. “Her eye, her ear. If it were an arm or foot, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”
Robert frowns. “It’s her entire bloody skull, and from what I understand, most of her brain. And yes, I’m thinking twice. At what point does she become something other? She wants basic human rights. What if she’s no longer basically human?”
“If you weren’t helping to carry her, I’d punch you,” Alex mutters.
“If I really didn’t give a damn, I wouldn’t be helping to carry her,” Robert shoots back. “Look,” he continues as we tromp toward the guest elevator, “I’m not saying she isn’t entitled to rights. I’m just questioning her status.” He glances at me. “Don’t think I didn’t see you flinch away when you looked her full-on in the face. It’s not an easy thing to take.”
Damn. I’d hoped he hadn’t noticed, that Vick hadn’t noticed, that her losing consciousness at that precise moment had been a necessity, not an avoidance tactic.
“It was a human reaction,” Alex says to me. “You couldn’t help it. No one could have. She’ll understand. She’ll forgive you.”
Vick will. But she won’t forget it. She’ll add it to her ever-growing list of reasons why she isn’t good enough for me. I rub the inside of my ring finger with my thumb, the absence of the engagement ring even more palpable. Vick’s questions about a soul, and now this. I worry she’ll talk herself right out of marrying me.
I need to reconvince her, and I need to get her through this.
We reach the lift and file aboard, the interior lights coming on and the doors sealing behind us. This is much more comfortable than the freight cage I went up in earlier. Sensing the endless walls passing on either side and knowing just how far down we were was an unnerving experience I don’t wish to repeat. But when Alex hits the controls, nothing happens.
“Um…,” he says, pocketing the mediscanner and pulling a diagnostic device in its place. A moment passes, then he’s using a multitool to strip off the metal panel and toss it aside.
The car rattles with another not-distant-enough cave-in. Lyle’s comm unit buzzes. He balances Vick’s upper body on one knee and answers it. Several terse grunts later, he clicks off. “Five minutes. We’ve got five minutes to get the hell out of here before the whole thing collapses.”
“No way I can get this thing moving in five minutes,” Alex warns. He laughs without humor. “It’s on a safety override. Seems its onboard systems think the mine shaft is too unstable to ascend.”
“We’re all gonna die if it doesn’t,” Lyle says.
“It’s not sophisticated enough to convince.”
“No, but VC1 is.” I move closer to Vick’s inert figure. Lyle has a firm grip on her now, he and Robert holding her flat and even. “VC1,” I address her, feeling foolish. “Can you take control of the lift?”
Robert blinks at me. “Who are you talking to?”
Before I can respond, the tiny screen on Alex’s diagnostic device flashes once, twice, then words scroll across it.
IF I DIVERT MY FOCUS, SHE WILL REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS.
No need to explain who “she” is. “If you don’t, we’re all going to be buried alive,” I say to the air.
No more words appear, but several indicator lights within the elevator control panel light up, then flash in random sequence. The metal surrounding us creaks. A grinding sound echoes through the compartment along with the rattle of a shower of pebbles and rocks striking the roof of the car. Then we’re moving, crawling really, but making our way up the shaft toward the surface.
Vick groans, then lets out a sharp gasp and struggles against the hands holding her. “Down. Put me down,” she manages.
The guys comply, propping her to sit upright against the side of the car. I’m moving to her when another jolt rocks us, throwing me against the elevator’s wall. Robert staggers into me. Lyle and Alex steady each other; Vick slides into the corner, giving a yelp when she hits. From above us, there’s a loud crack and a metal twang and the whole car tilts sideways at a terrifying angle. The grinding sound increases in volume. We’re still rising but moving even more slowly than before.
“We’ve lost one of the cables,” Alex shouts over the din. “Just need the last one to hold a little longer. I think we’re close.”
A creak is the only warning we have before the overhead lighting comes loose from its fastenings, swinging down on a single set of hinges. Lyle shifts to brace himself like a human tent over Vick’s huddled figure, his arms rigid against the corner walls above her. The light bar breaks free and crashes to the floor in a shower of sparks.
Darkness. Noise and darkness. No way to tell how far we have left to go.
“Kel?” Vick calls into the empty air. “My eye lamps aren’t working.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” And then we stop.
For a second, I think this is it. The lift has failed. We’re stuck, and soon the collapsing shaft will send us plummeting to our deaths with an immediate burial beneath all the rock and stone.
A bell chimes, its high-pitched tone far too cheerful for the circumstances. The doors slide halfway apart, then halt, revealing the hangar bay sideways to our view since we’re hanging at a sharp angle.
“Out. Out now. Move! Move!” Lyle shouts. He scoops up Vick in his powerful arms, getting through the breach first, with the rest of us not far behind them. We take maybe ten steps from the lift before the tearing of metal has us all turning back.
A snap like a firecracker going off in our ears. Then the entire thing breaks free and drops away. We catch a fleeting glimpse of the ragged cable trailing after it and disappearing into the darkness. The shaft is too long for us to hear the impact below.
“Oh… fuck…,” Vick whispers.
At first I think she’s referring to our narrow escape, but when I turn toward her, I see her with her hand to her cheek, or rather, her missing cheek, her good eye wide with horror, her remaining skin so pale it’s practically transparent, showing the veins beneath.
Most of the time, Vick keeps her nails blunt. Long, pretty nails, though they can be effective weapons, interfere with practical things like handling knives and pulling triggers. They catch in delicate gear and tear off in painful jagged edges. However, for this assignment, as part of her Valeria Court persona, Vick had grown them out. Now, as she moves her fingertips across the exposed metal of her skull, they send up an earsplitting screech.
I’ve never heard Vick scream before.
I’m hearing it now.