Wasteland: Rebirth, page 6
Is this also a test to see who gets to command the raid? Commander Caderyn or myself? Why are they pitting us against each other? What else are they planning that I don’t know about?
I grow tired of watching the spectacle, so I go to the medical ward. Reider is hooked up to various machines monitoring his heart rate and oxygen levels, and administering pain medication. His eyes flicker open upon my approach. He scowls at me, anger clear on his face.
“Did you come here to finish the job?” he asks, with a raspy voice.
“No, I came to see how you’re doing.”
“Why?”
“I got concerned when you didn’t show up to dinner like everyone else,” I lie. I take a seat next to his bed. “What are the medics saying?”
“That I’m lucky to be alive.” He tries to move his head to see me, but can’t due to his confinement. “What did I do to make you lash out like you did?”
“You’re attitude, if you want the truth.” I scoot the chair closer. “You’ve had this arrogance about you since the beginning, thinking you’re better than everyone else. You’ve never been in real conflict or even suffered a devastating injury, so how the hell could you know anything? I wanted to teach you a lesson.”
“Well, it was a good one.”
He closes his eyes and falls asleep. I stay, looking at him closely. His black hair hangs below his shoulder and is wavy. He’s tall, at least over six foot-four. His skin is just slightly tanner than mine, and with better muscle tone. The Quantum Stream spirals around his torso. Thin lines twirl around his biceps and forearms. I pick up his hand and turn it over so it’s palm up. Small fractures illuminate it. I find myself placing mine inside his. I can feel the energy of the Quantum Stream increase, flowing between us. My shield goes up, encasing us together. The monitors begin to beep wildly as his heart rate increases. The stream glows brightly, but it’s his, not mine. I look down at my arms and notice the blue tint becoming dull. My insides begin to hurt and I cough because I can’t get any air into my lungs.
I try to break the connection, but my hand is fused with his. I can’t get the shield to disengage either. Reider takes a deep breath, his eyes fly open, and he turns to look at me. I feel weak, as if I’m dying. He lets go of my hand and I fall out of my chair, collapsing to the floor. Reider begins shouting for a medic, but all I can hear is the blood pumping hard in my head.
I find myself in the bed next to his. Jin is talking to one of the medics, trying to ascertain what happened. My hearing hasn’t completely returned, but what I’m able to make out, it sounds like I healed Reider. Jin takes a tablet from the medic who leaves, then she walks up next to me.
“How do you feel?” Jin asks, assessing my vitals on the pad.
“Like I died. What happened?” I try and sit myself up in the bed, but feel too weak to move.
“We’re still trying to figure that out. As far as we know, whatever it was has completely mended Reider. He’s going to be released within the hour to return to the housing unit. You, on the other hand, will need to remain here for the night.”
I reluctantly agree and go back to sleep. In the morning, I’m alone. The medics bring me breakfast, but I don’t have an appetite so I say no. Jin comes in a few minutes later and practically force-feeds me. I want to get back to training my group, but the medics claim they need to run some tests on me to find out what happened. I refuse the tests, drag myself from bed, and go back to my room. I stay there for the next day and a half. Jin brings me meals, all the time harassing me about being examined. I continue to refuse, and return to training my group the next day.
The evening battle segments have been going on without me, and my group was being led by one of the instructors in my absence. From the scores on the monitors around the arena, Commander Caderyn and I are tied. Reider hasn’t competed yet. Apparently the medics aren’t sure if he’s properly healed, as he too is refusing any testing. I request Reider be added to the line-up for tonight’s contest. The Commander agrees, and chooses him for the first sequence.
Reider is thrown up against a woman from the Commander’s team by the name of Laith, who is atop the leader board. I protest that this match isn’t fair, but am shot down by the instructors as they agree with the decision by the Commander. I take a seat close to the arena floor as the contestants choose their weapons. Surprisingly, Reider takes a Pugio blade, a long sword that has a thick blade with a curved tip, while his opponent picks a Levin rifle. I’ve never shown any of them how to use a Pugio blade, and I don’t think it should be an option for them to select from. With the proper momentum, he could sever a limb or kill her.
The crowd gets quiet as the lights dim. The woman takes the first shot. Reider dodges the blast, which is absorbed into a barrier that has risen from the walls surrounding the arena floor. He advances with the blade, but the woman is quick and slides between his legs while he’s lifting the weapon over his head. She fires the rifle and a Levin blast hits him in the back, right where I injured him. A shield goes up around him when the stream is contacted, and the discharge is repelled back to Laith, knocking her off her feet and injuring her right side. Everyone waits to see if she’ll get back on her feet. She struggles at first, but recovers and is healing.
Her face lights up with rage. She picks up her weapon and fires continuously at Reider, striking him many times, but all are rebounded back to her. She manages to evade a couple of the ricochets, but one gets her in the chest and another hits her in the stomach, bringing her crashing to the floor. The lights are brought back up, and the medics enter the arena, removing her. Reider hands over the Pugio blade to the Commander and is escorted from the building. The rest of us are told to return to our rooms, and that the battles will resume tomorrow.
I go back to my room, but can’t sleep. Something about what I saw looks familiar to me. Only in my mind I’m seeing a Dimachaerus, a double-bladed sword, extremely sharp and lethal, instead of the Pugio blade. I toss and turn for the next couple of hours before finally giving up on sleep all together. I slip on some shoes, quietly exit the room, and go downstairs. The Regulators have turned in for the night, so all entrances are clear. I make my way into the arena, walking all the way down to the metallic floor. The weapons tray is still sitting out. I go over to it and look over the options. The only weapons are Levin guns and rifles, no Pugio blades.
“Looking for something?” Reider asks, joining me on the floor.
“I was just wondering exactly what types of weapons were being made available to the fighters. I don’t see a Pugio blade as an option, so I’m wondering how one ended up on the tray.”
“Does it really matter how I got the weapon? I didn’t use it.” He walks closer to me, looming larger with every step.
I don’t move. It’s almost as if I’m glued to my spot. “Even so, I would say it wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Then, what would make it a fair fight?” He stops inches from me. He lifts his hand and begins to caress my bare arm.
I step back from him, getting out of his reach. “You battle against me. No blades, no swords, just Levin guns.”
He steps closer. “And what makes me trust you won’t manipulate the gun like last time?”
I feel heat rising between us, but mostly hostility rather than attraction. “You don’t, but something tells me you can handle it this time.” I brush past him as I head towards the entrance.
There’s something I don’t trust about him, but I can’t quite figure it out.
I spend the rest of the evening on the track, running to clear my head. When the sun rises, I go to breakfast, then back to the housing unit to shower. I thoroughly scrub myself, almost to the point of being raw. I dry off and am in the middle of getting dressed when Jin walks into the room.
I know she’s to keep an eye on me, but sometimes it feels like she just won’t leave me alone, as if she’s stalking me.
“Premier Vladim is on his way here. He wants a report on the soldiers and to speak with you and Reider personally.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to respond and closes the door abruptly. I secure my hair into a ponytail, exit into the hall and am meet immediately by two Regulators who direct me to the lift. I’m placed into one of the offices on the top floor, and the door is locked to keep me in.
Now what?
A half-hour later, Reider is escorted into the room, and the door is locked once again. He looks as confused as I am. He approaches me, but I move towards a couch on the far wall and sit.
“Any idea what this is about?” he asks, standing off to the side.
“No,” I answer, detest in my voice.
Why am I so bothered by him? He’s never really done anything to me personally, other than piss me off, but that shouldn’t account for my animosity towards him.
The door opens a few minutes later. Premier Vladim walks in with Commander Caderyn and Dr. Hersher following. We’re ordered to take a seat at the table in the middle of the room. I wait until Reider sits so I can sit as far away from him as possible, but after I take my chair, Reider moves close to me. Everyone is quiet for the first few minutes. My anxiety grows the longer I stare into their faces. A look of confusion, scorn, and concern echoes in all three.
“Andred,” Dr. Hersher begins, “we need to test you and Reider in connection with what happened the other day. We can’t understand how you were able to heal him, so we must determine the cause. We want to make sure that it isn’t harmful to either of you.”
“No, forget it,” I say. “You’ll just have to figure this out without me.”
“If she says no, then I do too,” Reider says.
I look at him, puzzled by his response. I nearly killed the man, and yet he seems to be trying to sway my opinion about him by agreeing with me. I try not to let it affect me, but despite my feelings of annoyance at him, it’s kind of nice to have someone on my side for a change.
“You two don’t understand the ramifications this can have on the entire Antaean population. If it has detrimental effects, then the Antaeans can be severely compromised simply by trying to assist each other if they’re wounded. From what the medics have communicated to us, you were critically incapacitated for a few hours after your encounter with Reider.”
“I felt a little weak, but I recovered. Nothing harmful happened,” I lie. If I tell them the truth, they’ll just pick me apart again like they have been. I’m done with being their experiment.
“But we need to be sure,” Dr. Hersher says, getting more insistent. “We can’t have this type of incident happen again, especially when you’re in the field and there isn’t a medical team available to help.”
“We’ll be fine,” Reider says. “I’ll make sure nothing like that happens again. We didn’t know it was going to occur, so now that we do, we’ll avoid such an encounter again.”
As he’s speaking, he takes my hand. I try to release myself, but he’s stronger than I am, squeezing it tighter the more I attempt to get free. I give up after a few seconds and just let him hold it.
Dr. Hersher is about to protest some more when the Premier raises his hand, silencing him.
“Doctor, would you and the Commander please wait for me outside? I would like to have a word with these two.”
Commander Caderyn practically has to lift Dr. Hersher from his seat to get him to leave. I can feel Reider tensing up, as if expecting a violent confrontation.
He barely knows the Premier, why would being in a room alone with the man make him jittery?
“How long has the relationship between you two been going on?” the Premier asks, voice calm and level.
“Just recently,” Reider responds before I can get a word out. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. “Why?”
Premier Vladim’s face lights up like I’ve never seen before. He smiles for the first time, almost giggling with glee. “I’m so happy this has occurred. You two make a wonderful couple and I strongly encourage this. I’ll make arrangements for you to have your own quarters, so you can have some privacy. Reider, you will be training with Andred, just the two of you. Andred, I will have one of the instructors take over the training for your team as I need you to get Reider here up to your caliber of performance.”
He pats Reider on the shoulder, gets up, and exits the room. Once the door is closed, I put all my weight into my back and slam Reider to the floor. I roll off as he grabs for my shirt. He snatches my arm and pulls me back down on top of him.
“Why the hell did you say that?” I growl at him, trying to free myself from his grip. “We’re not a couple. I loathe you.”
His mouth turns up in the corners, not quite a smile. Something more menacing. “You’ll grow to love me now that we’ll always be together.”
I knee him in the stomach. He flinches, loosening his grip. “We’ll see about that.”
Commander Caderyn returns a few moments later, and instructs us to head over to the live-round field while the housing arrangements are modified. I begin to protest being made to live with Reider, but the Commander cuts me off abruptly and says that since the Premier has ordered it, the change will occur. It’s clear Commander Caderyn is angry about the change in the situation, but he knows he has to go along with what the Premier has told him to do.
I moan at the thought of being stuck with Reider all day, every day. I’m not thrilled with the idea of living with him, let alone training him. We take the lift down, and head towards the weapons cache. Reider tries to sweet talk me the whole way there, but I ignore him, concentrating on ways I can torment him in the field. I select two Levin guns, a rifle, and two Pugio blades.
The Regulators open the gates upon our approach. Thankfully, we aren’t completely alone. An instructor is standing in the watch tower, monitoring us. We walk to the center of the field, place the weapons down, and I begin to discuss strategies on how to overpower your enemy. We use the rubble around the area for practice, each taking a Levin gun, and starting at opposite ends of the field. Whoever finds the other first, wins. We won’t be firing at each other since this is simply a strategy session, not a combat one. It takes me only a matter of minutes to locate Reider. I find him working his way to the top of the stone columns and walls trying to locate his enemy.
I tell him that his idea is fine, but only if he has soldiers flanking him. Doing it alone makes him more vulnerable. I tell him to change tactics, try another approach. We separate again. This time it takes me a little over ten minutes to find him. He gets better at concealment, but needs to be quieter on his approaches. I can hear him before I can see him. I call up to the instructor in the tower and ask him to come down to assist. He’s a little reluctant at first, but finally joins us. He introduces himself as Latro, and we shake hands. I decide we won’t use any weapons in this round since the key is stealth and cover. I send Latro off to the far end of the field. Reider follows behind me, practically on my heels as we move from wall to column. Thirty minutes pass before we find Latro. He actually managed to get past us and return almost to the other end. I had made the decision to double back, which is the only reason we found him.
“I’m impressed,” I say to Latro. “You’d make a great soldier.”
“Thanks, but I prefer to watch the fighting from a distance.” He smiles and returns back to the watch tower.
We break for lunch, then return. Reider insists I show him how to remove the safety features on the Levin guns. It’s a very easy process, you just need to know how to manipulate the locking mechanisms inside the grip and under the barrel, but I refuse to show him. Instead, I have to remove them quickly behind my back so he can’t watch. He protests, but I don’t pay attention. I go into a cage by the entrance and remove a couple of disabled battle droids. I place them around the field as targets. I climb up onto an alcove in the center, so I can see better, and tell Reider to begin the drill. He slips from side to side, a lot quieter this time. He spots the first target, aims, and fires. The Quantum Stream ignites around him. His body glows intensely as the energy surges through him and into the weapon. The battle droid is disintegrated in mere seconds. He destroys two more, before I tell him to stop so I can practice. He takes my spot, and I begin my trudge through the rubble. When I fire my weapon, I have the same effect on the droids. Of the six I placed around the field, we leave only one unharmed. Reider cleans up our mess, while I re-enable the safety devices.
Next are the Pugio blades. I pick one up and show him how to hold the weapon properly. I place my palm on the ports at the bottom of the hilt and the stream winds its way around the blade, almost making the metal sing. My moves are smooth, almost rhythmic. The faster I move, the brighter the stream glows. I pick up the other blade and hand it to Reider. I show him the proper hold, and then begin the movements. He stumbles at first, almost nicking himself a few times. He’s not graceful, but with practice he’ll be mastering it in no time.
Latro whistles down to us and lets us know it’s dinnertime. We pick up the weapons, return them to the cache, and enter the dining hall. Practically everyone is watching us as we try to find a table to sit at. We decide to join the instructors, since they have an opening. As I’m eating, I look around the room and see concerned faces staring back.
Why does everyone look so serious?
I notice Mair and Thane have now been brought over. They come to our table. Reider introduces himself and they take to him instantly, asking him all kinds of questions. We clear our plates and head towards the arena. I have to sit on the Antaeans’ side instead of with the instructors and staff side like I had been. Commander Caderyn begins his selection with Mair and Thane. The two are evenly matched, but Mair overpowers Thane eventually. She practically shouts with happiness when he falls. The medics have to remove him from the arena before the next set can be called. Reider is the last to go. The only weapons I see tonight are the Levin guns and rifles. Reider subdues his opponent in a matter of minutes.
