Tailspin, page 55
“Snake suits you.” I couldn’t help but laugh at them. “How you doing?” I asked Silao.
He clasped his hands against mine and Malaki’s. “I am good,” he said. “Very good. I got six drones in the air.” The green-eyed monster flared inside me, and he smiled. “Don’t you be worrying about me. You get this next week over and you’ll be passing me in no time.”
“It shows?”
“You wouldn’t be a DP or with Malaki if there wasn’t a bit of a competitive edge to your nature.”
“I’m glad you got them in the air. I want to hear all about it.”
“Oh, I want to talk, tell you everything. But…we’re under doctors’ orders to see you, then let you sleep some more.”
“Bummer,” I said, then sighed. I was exhausted; my whole body ached, and my mind swam.
The others all piled in, and my room was a mess of hugs, hands, and faces. Faces I could see with perfect clarity. Every tiny cell, every hair follicle. The X16 focused in and out with my direction in nanoseconds.
Apex, this is amazing. No answer from him. Apex?
Ren’s dark hair caught the light, and I noted it wasn’t just dark hair; there were white ones threading through it. Not gray, white.
Malaki caught me staring at her. “She is beautiful.”
“What?” I turned to her, my face flushing, and she laughed.
“Ren is beautiful, strong, dedicated. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to date her.”
Date? She had to be kidding me. “I was actually looking at her hair follicles.”
Ren must have heard us talking about her and spun around her eyes wide. “You were looking at my what?”
All eyes turned to me. I coughed and heat rose up my neck. “Well, I can see everything a lot better. You have really interesting hair follicles.”
The entire room burst out laughing, and Alba came in. “Come on, all of you lot.” She chased them around the room. “Out now. Ruslan needs his rest; he will be up and about tomorrow.”
There were complaints all around, but Malaki moved off, finally letting go of my hand.
“Tomorrow!” Alba ordered. “Out!”
They were gone—all of them, including Alba—and I lay back, my mind whirring.
Apex?
Nothing.
I let my eyes close. The light in the room dimmed as if a switch had turned off.
Give me some time, Apex croaked. Please.
Okay, I replied. My worry growing. I’m here if you need me.
Thank you.
I didn’t sleep. I lay there. I think I’d just had enough sleep, really. Didn’t know what to think or do with myself. I felt I couldn’t get up, though, or go and do anything, at least nothing that wouldn’t wake the hospital, or anyone who was supposed to be looking after me.
I sent a message to Michaels. I wanted to talk to him as soon as I could too. I needed to understand what was going on, who had sorted all of this.
Nothing came back, so I sent a few other messages off, one to my mom, detailing how I was doing, that I was okay. And some truths to Tsomak, and Bail. I even said a hello to Daisy. No one got back to me. I had a billion questions, and no one to talk to.
Eventually I hit comms and knocked for Niko. “You there?”
“Where do you think I am, someone else going to answer my ID?”
I laughed a little. I really wanted to call Malaki, but instead I listened to Niko run me through everything that had happened in the last week, the best way he could. Slowly.
I did eventually fall asleep.
***
Roe brought breakfast for me the next morning and the next. Her tired eyes gained some new spark with every day I improved. I wasn’t allowed too many visitors, and my fireteam was busy, much to my rising disappointment. I ate everything I could and asked for more.
“Knew you’d want more.” With a deft hand, she pulled out some extra protein bars and a shake. “All I could manage, though, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know.” I rolled my eyes at her. “Most expensive person here, and you can’t even feed me.”
She laughed nervously. “Everyone’s struggling at the moment.”
“Wait, Rise is struggling?” I popped the top of the shake and drank some. Cradling the cool bottle in my hands.
“All hospitals are. Resources are tight. You lot don’t come cheap, no, but we fight for every one of you to get what you need.”
My picture of Artem was changing fast. My once-thought-of poor life, also struggling life, nonexistent. I knew now I was rich, or at least had been rich. Access to free Aug-Word given as a child, paid for by my mother and stepfather, then by myself. The roof over our heads, to the food on our table. Sure, we’d started to struggle when Tsomak was injured, but it had taken us a long time to hit rock bottom. Most of Artem was at rock bottom. I now saw this world with very different eyes and not just because of the new X16A.
A sheen passed over my eye and I blinked. “Did you see that?”
“I don’t see anything of the X16, if that’s what you mean. Unless I use one of our scanners. No one can tell the difference. That’s the point, it’s not like some of the other eye pieces, ugly street-made ones, where they can tell with ease its tech.”
“You think I look normal, too? Mal said I did.”
“Not at the moment.” Roe’s almost smile turned into a frown. “The nites are working very hard, hence your extra need for food as usual. But you’ve a way to go before being fully healed.”
“Ahh,” I said, and I put my drink down about to reach for my face.
“No touching,” Roe ordered, and stopped me. “At least not today, if you can help it.” She turned to the small table at the end of my bed and picked up a data pad. Then, turning the camera on, she passed it to me.
I stared at my face. It was nothing like normal. My nose looked squished, though I could breathe okay, and the red skin they’d obviously grafted over and around everything looked like that a horrid red blotchy patch. There was a sheen over it, making everything shiny.
“The nites are protecting it now with everything they have while it heals. Inside, outside, and everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“Mage Baron shocked you with god knows how many volts of electricity to stop your X1 from killing you.”
I searched deep inside my eyes with both of them, hoping, maybe I could see him, inside me. Apex?
Though he had responded, there was nothing.
How did you help tech to get over something they shouldn’t have even been able to experience? Question after question ran through my mind, but I pushed them aside when my HUD pinged.
I glanced at it. Unknown number. “HUD. I need to get this,” I said to Roe.
“I’ll be next door if you need me. Push the button.”
When she left, closing the door behind her, I eased myself up and went to answer the internal comms.
“Hello?”
“I got into trouble,” the voice said. It was young.
“Who are you and how’d you get this ID?” I asked.
“It was on the job for you.” He was panicked. “You’re Ruslan, right?”
“Yes, who are you?”
“Shay,” he said. “Shay Xion.”
“What trouble are you in, Shay?”
I could try to trace him, do something, I wasn’t sure what. I was in the freaking hospital.
Maybe someone else could help? Fuck, who. I didn’t know anyone underground, but the hacker I’d been using, heck I didn’t even know who he was.
“I’m stuck between two gangs,” he said. “I don’t even know their names. But they knew I was crossing the tracks.”
“Tracks? Where are you?”
“I’ll send the location.”
I waited for what seemed like an eternity. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have much in funds, had to load old school.”
The location came in and I cringed. “You’re really that far away?”
His words sank in. The job. Holy shit, he was delivering my TAP. So it was underground, it wasn’t Michaels? I couldn’t think or process this, my mind a mess, recovering. He was in trouble, and we had to act.
Fast.
66
Shay’s voice changed, “Aren’t you waiting for this at Laronda’s?”
“No, I’m by the ocean,” I replied, trying to force my brain to work, to act.
“The ocean?”
How could he be confused about that? “It’s far from Laronda’s, kid.”
“I’m no kid,” he spat back.
I didn’t know what to do. Panic for me set in, as much as I could hear it in Shay’s voice. I thought about what he carried. I needed that TAP.
“I’m bringing in another to this call, you okay with that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. I could hear moving. “They’re tracking me through the bush. I can see them now. Ruslan, I don’t have long. If you can get anyone here to help me get away, be fast.”
I flicked across the comms channels, found Malaki, and brought her in. “Rus, I’m kinda busy.”
“We’ve got a problem. I’d suggest you find somewhere to talk.”
“Shit.” She made a lot of noise herself. In the background, I could hear a man, a voice I did know. “I’ll be in, in thirty seconds.”
We waited, and I knew Shay was getting more agitated. When she popped back, I explained and she joined the joint channel.
“What’s going on?” Malaki said.
“I need a distraction, anything so I can get out of this building and back on my way.”
“Tracking location now. We have someone I can trust in the area. Let me contact them and see if they’ll help.”
“Hurry,” Shay said.
Malaki went silent, then to me she said, “This isn’t going to be cheap, either. There’s only mercs around.”
“There’s no one else?”
“No, no one I’d be trusting with that kind of tech. It’s just…give me a minute, I’ll see what else I can do if anything.”
“Can’t fly down there yourself?” I asked.
“No, we’re way too far from him.”
“What is she doing?” Shay asked.
“Trying to get you some real help,” I replied.
“They think I’ve gone over the tracks,” Shay said. “Some are moving over, just a few are staying.”
“That’s good!”
“I still can’t leave.”
“A team is on their way.” Malaki came back a few moments later. “You’ll hear from someone called Tijan.”
“That’s not a name,” Shay said, then chuckled.
“Nickname, call sign, I don’t know, that’s all I got.”
“If I make it out of here, I’ll contact you,” Shay said, and he disconnected.
“Mal,” I said. “What the…”
“Give him some time,” Malaki chided.
“Time? I don’t have time. I’m on nothing but bed rest till I get that thing in me, doctors’ fucking orders.”
“I know. I’m sure he’ll be fine. It will be there for us.”
I lay back in the bed, my head, my mind working overtime again.
It will be okay.
Apex?
I’m here.
I let out a big sigh, sinking into my pillows. I thought I’d lost you.
“I have to go, Malaki,” I said to her. “Come in and see me if you can today. I need to see you.”
“I’ll try. If not I’ll get one of the others to stop in. Kay?”
“Okay.” When she cut off, I turned back inside myself.
Can we talk, Apex?
I’m tired, but I’ll try.
That was all I wanted. I wanted to try.
***
Apex didn’t talk for too long, but he did talk, and that was more than I had had from him for now.
I understood a little of what he went through, even if not the how or the why.
Question after question ran through my mind, but I pushed them aside when my HUD pinged once again.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Malaki said when I answered her comms call.
“Hey,” I whispered.
“We can pick you up about lunch if you’re free, take you back to OOF.”
I looked to Roe, who knew I’d vanished into my head.
“Malaki?”
I nodded. “They can pick me up at lunch if that’s okay?”
“Alba’s already said they’d want you back sharp, though I don’t think you should go just yet. I know I can’t stop you, either.”
“If Jim gives me the all clear with this,” I waved my hand over my face, “I have one place I need to be, just like the mage has to be.”
“It’s dangerous out there.”
“Looking out there, it’s dangerous everywhere.”
The door went, and Jim came in. “You’re up and have eaten?”
“Everything in front of his face,” Roe said.
“Good, I’ve a few tests to run, but you should be able to—”
“Leave?” I asked eagerly.
“The others on your case already?” Jim asked.
“We have a job, Doc.”
Jim looked over his own data pad. “No pain?”
“Nothing.” Though it was a little lie.
“Could be the pain relief. I won’t let you go till that has run out of your system, and I’d like it to run its course. Another hour or so. If it’s going to be rejected again, it will show by then.”
“I hope not,” I said, and my heart rate shot up. “After everything we did…”
“It’s looking good,” Jim said. “Don’t panic.”
I let out a breath, calmed myself down some. “What kinda tests do I need to do?”
“Roe will get you some uniform slacks, but we’ll get you up and out to the training grounds. Some nice, easy practice with your new eye will let us see how it’s integrating.”
“Practice?”
“You might have helped the Black Bears with their guns, but you never connected to one. This, when you try, will be like a smaller version of a TAP through your fingers.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“When you’re attached to the gun, you’ll see what I mean. I’ll be back in, say, thirty minutes?”
“A shower would be nice,” I hinted to Roe.
“Thirty minutes is good.” She nodded at Jim. Then to me said, “Come on, I’d like to get home for some sleep sometime today.”
I groaned. “What, you don’t want to see your cousin again?”
She shook her head and whipped off my blanket. “Up, now.”
The shower was good, though the water slid off my protective nites and I didn’t feel anything on that side of my face. Numb. It was the weirdest sensation ever there.
“You okay in there?” Roe asked through the partially open doorway what seemed only a few moments later.
“Be better if I had some company,” I called back, to hear her laugh.
I sighed.
Girls don’t like you? Apex asked.
I jumped, my foot slipping on the non-slip shower surface. I caught myself before I face planted into the wall.
Sorry.
Women don’t like me, I replied. Girls, sure. I could get any girl I wanted. I thought back to Daisy. Yep, she was a girl, not yet a woman. Least in my eyes. Allie, she was a woman and one that never looked my way.
I stood back up, soap drifted over my eye, and I watched it as it slowly ran from my hair to my nose. The nite protective sheen worked a treat, no soap in it. I could, however, see every tiny bubble with perfect clarity. The myriad colors reflecting on each one fascinated me.
There was a knock at my comms. Michaels. I paused the water, stood in the warm steam, and answered it quickly. “Sir.”
“I’ve only got a minute. We have scheduled you at Laronda’s as you think, but not for the TAP that young runner Shay is bringing. Good job on securing him help, though; that was tight for him to get out of.”
“Oh,” I said, confused. “You knew? Why didn’t you step in?”
“We had men watching. We couldn’t step in—we’d be spotted a mile off. No, it was better you did as you did.”
“So you’re letting me get the TAP still?”
“We wanted that one off the market, so we’ve bought that, and paid heavy for it. Surgeons are flying in, and you’ll be going into theater with them. The best thing we can give you, as you said, is our tech, one our scientists think you can handle, so we are.”
“I will handle it, sir,” I said, confident I really wasn’t lying this time.
“I know. We do need you out there, and we can’t wait for the X series. They’ve discovered a few other complications, but they are working on it. Rest assured as soon as it’s ready, you’ll be getting it.”
“So this is all sanctioned, then, properly?”
“As properly as it can be. There’s still some highly classified information around you, but you’re going under one of the best surgeons we have.”
“Not Doctor Brosk?”
“No, not for this. He is very good in his field, but there are other surgeons who will help you through this phase. We’ll move you to Brosk later for recovery. The attachment there will help ground you with recovery.”
Attachment? I couldn’t really deny that. Jim, Alba, and Roe had seen me through a lot this last year and more.
“Understood, sir.” I thought for just a second. Shay…his panic. “Sir…the kid. He’s not in any trouble, is he?”
“We’re aware of his situation, still classified. We’re watching him. So far he’s not in trouble.”
I worried for him, though I’d no idea why, not really. Maybe he just reminded me of, well, me.
“An escort will be following you and Malaki, just to be sure you get there safe. But we still need those watching Laronda to think you went underground for this.”
“I have a million questions still, sir,” I said. “I want—”
“I know,” he cut me off. “We’ll talk again soon. Good luck, son.”
I balled my fists, slapped the wall. He was gone. In the next breath, the shower door was yanked open, and the cold air from outside gusted in, instantly making me shiver.
“Thought so, just lazing around.”
“Hey.” I tried my best to hide my nakedness, suddenly shy in front of her.
