Tailspin, page 58
She smiled, then there was something else in her hand, another tiny tube. Pink lip balm. “Here, this will help.” Gently she dabbed a finger on the end, and then came at me, wiping my lips.
I got a tiny taste of sweetness, and a smell of fruitiness. My throat felt so raw. I licked my lips, saliva bursting forward, and threatened to drip on her. I swallowed quickly.
“Better?”
I couldn’t move to even nod at her, so I blinked.
“That a yes?”
I blinked again.
“I’ll be right back.” Malaki scooted out from under the bed slightly. I didn’t want her to go…I wanted to scream at her to stay, to stay with me.
“How’s he looking, Doc?” I heard her say. “Did as you asked, right? Everything good?”
“As well as can be expected,” the voice said. “He’s not turned, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You’re sure?”
“It was touch and go there for a while. But I’m positive. We know how to pull them back. No specter’s ever been created here, I assure you.”
Specter?
“Now I know you’re lying,” she said. “There’s specters created at every center. You’re not immune to them or to mods going wrong. You already proved that in there.”
Damn, she was upset.
You know what specters are?
Yeah, I fired back at him. As much as I hate to admit it, I was worried for a moment there myself. It was trying to absorb me, us. Right?
We’re okay, Apex assured me. If you were going to go rogue, I’d be the first to let you know and kick your ass.
Good to know.
“Everything is okay here.” The doctor’s voice came back, more insistent this time. “You just concentrate on helping him with recovery.”
When Malaki scooted back under me, my heart settled again.
“I’m staying, don’t worry.” She reached up and touched the side of my head. “Hooking in,” she said. “I’m not sure how it will feel. I will try to be gentle.”
I felt her connection through the system to my mind. No pain, I said.
Good. Good. There was relief spread across her brows.
What happened?
There were several complications.
I felt something. Something that hurt.
One of the surgeons nicked a major blood vessel, they patched it, and it’s had nites working on fixing it since.
It’s okay, the TAP?
Fully fitted, your new spine obviously back in place, ribs and everything are working.
Apart from I might not walk again?
You heard that?
Yea. Is it true?
They’re not sure, she said, and tears bubbled in her eyes. I wanted to reach out, wipe them away. I couldn’t. I was stuck.
Hey, hey, don’t.
Malaki wiped her eyes and focused back on me. Sorry.
Can’t they move me?
She shook her head. Not yet.
How long am I supposed to be like this?
Another forty-eight hours.
Crap, anything I can do to help this process?
Nothing. You’re awake at the moment, but they want to put you back under, let the body and the nites heal before you try to even think about moving.
I don’t want to go back under.
I argued for you, and I’m here for the forty-eight hours.
Crap, put me back, put me back!
Fuck you! But her smile, it was infectious.
Not a chance, I said. Only got eyes on the sky!
Damn right, and on that note…we have some lectures to catch up on, and you have a lot of other drone shit to learn.
***
Malaki was her relentless self over the next forty-eight hours, but as she held a straw up for me to drink, I could do nothing but grin at her.
“What?” she asked.
I sucked up the shake and almost spat it at her, laughing. “Thanks for being here.”
“I got you.” She smiled. “Just remember, if I ever need looking after—”
“I got you,” I replied.
“Docs coming in any minute to rotate the bed,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Nervous.”
“Any pain?”
“Nothing as yet.”
“I am here,” a voice said.
“Jim?”
“Who else would you expect?”
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“Oh yeah, he came in last night, by special request.”
“Mal.” My voice wavered.
She winked at me. “I’ll see you up top.” Then she slipped out from under me.
“Flushing your system out of any anesthetic,” Jim said. “Let me know if there’s anything you feel that’s wrong, anything at all.”
“I will,” I replied.
The soft beep-beep of machinery drifted to me as I concentrated on what might be going on above me.
Everything went cold. Really cold.
“You okay?”
“Cold,” I replied, and felt like I was shivering, but I wasn’t.
“It will pass. We’ll turn the bed and slide a new one under you, okay?”
“Understood.”
There was nothing to feel now, though my view of the room changed, and as the bed turned, Malaki and Jim’s face came into view. The 3D image on their side displayed my whole body in full FX. It was weird to see. There was strain on my spine. It went from green to orange, but it didn’t turn red.
“New bed’s going under. Again, any pain let me know.”
I felt it, the sheets on my ass. My bare ass. Shit, had Malaki seen everything?
She pinked slightly and looked away. I’d have to ask her. No. No, I didn’t. We were professionals, friends. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen me, and I am sure as hell positive it wasn’t going to be the last.
“No helicopter today,” I admitted.
To my surprise, Jim burst out laughing. “She said you’d say that. I can’t believe it.”
The bed above me moved off and my weight settled. “No pain?”
I shook my head. Actually shook my head. “No,” I said. “Is that good?”
“What do you feel?”
“A little cold still, numb?”
Jim turned to the 3D image. “Okay, I’ll lessen the pain relief some more, and let’s see how you go.”
“Can I stand?”
“Not yet. Let’s see how you are in an hour, then take it from there.”
“Sorry, I just want to get up, get going. People need us, you know.”
“They can wait,” Malaki said. “You’ve just had major surgery. You thought the X24 and X16 were hard. That—”
“I know,” I said. “I know, you know.”
Jim cast her a glance, and she answered with, “I had full spinal replacement when I was younger.”
“Oh, though no TAP?” Jim asked.
“It was an accident,” she said. “A terrible one.”
“I can only imagine.” Jim side glanced at her and then me. “If you ever need a second opinion or any work, please, just ask.”
Malaki nodded but didn’t reply to that one.
We really needed to talk. I wanted to; I wanted to really understand her, her thoughts, her past.
One day, Apex said.
Hey! I replied to him. How are you?
I never felt it.
I am glad. Is there anything you can tell me on my situation?
Apex brought up my stats again, and for the first time in a while, I read through and fully understood what we’d been through and how far I’d—no, we’d—come.
69
The last few months had been a whirlwind, literally. Leading up to this, where I had to take exams at a level I’d never really studied for and then never actually got to take.
Everyone else had been here for the full term. Three of us hadn’t. The three of us, Declan, Walter, and myself, had crammed in years’ worth of study together the only way we could. Overnight listening, audio while training any and every part of our bodies, while walking to lectures from math to survival, general warfare, and tactics. To the actual flight practice we were out on and grinding away. The more we did, the more was asked of us.
There wasn’t a moment in the time I’d been here that my brain wasn’t working, or my body, or both. I was exhausted.
Nothing, though, however much I’d prepared for had prepared me for this, the TAP.
Malaki and Jim had stayed long enough that I’d felt normal, myself. I wasn’t allowed to move, but to begin to feel things.
I felt nothing.
Until I did.
I hadn’t understood at all the pain Apex had been through with surgery and yet he’d agreed to work through it with me. We’d talked a couple of times, but it was brief.
This pain came in the middle of the night. It started like tingling at the top of my ass, and it woke me.
Maybe I needed the toilet? To my horror, I’d discovered I’d still had a catheter in, and the nurses wouldn’t take it out. Forty-eight hours. I could do this.
Movement at the side of my bed made me look. They’d brought in another bed for Malaki to sleep on, and she turned over to face me.
“You okay?” she asked sleepily rubbing her eyes.
“No,” I spat back, and when she shied away, I regretted it.
“I can’t prepare you for what’s coming. I’m sorry.”
It was the concern on her face, the softness to her frown, her tone. It irritated the fuck out of me. “It’s not your fault. Why are you sorry?”
“Most DPs won’t talk about it, but I went to Frank. I asked him if it was anything like what I went through and we talked.” She reached over the empty space between us. “Just know I’m not leaving your side at all.”
I’d never expected her to, till the pain grew.
Burning, my back was on fire.
I held out for as long as I could and Malaki tried to distract me.
It didn’t work. Nothing worked. Nothing could stop this.
When every nerve cell up my spine came back to life, it was as if a thousand sharp, tiny teeth sank into me and bit down. I almost jumped off the bed.
Alarms sounded. Malaki screamed, and I…I think I screamed the whole hospital down.
I didn’t think it was going to end, and it had only been a few seconds.
Excruciating, nerve ending, deadly pain.
There was nothing like it.
I wanted to die. If someone had put a gun in front of me, I’d have put it to my head and pulled the trigger.
I writhed on the bed, sweat pouring off me.
HEART RATE - 200 bpm
BLOOD PRESSURE - 195/130
That’s when I heard Apex more than Malaki. I’m here, he said. I’m also not going anywhere.
You can’t, I retaliated.
No, but if I were physical like Malaki, I wouldn’t. The more he talked, the more pain I seemed to endure. I’m here. Listen to me, focus on the pain, see what the TAP’s showing you, what you can not only feel with it, but see.
See? He had me confused and at first that confusion was pure anger.
I fucking hated him.
I hated Malaki.
I called her everything under the sun for persuading me in here, for persuading me to have this operation.
“You did this,” I screamed at her. “I wish I never met you, you’re the worst friend anyone could ever have. You should have talked me out of this. Why would you let me do this? You’re no friend of mine. I hate you. I never want to see you ever again.”
Everything I could have hurled at her, I did.
It really wasn’t her, but she was getting the brunt of this anger, this pain-fed frustration.
I said words I’d regret for the rest of my life, about her sister, about her own operation, about how her sister should have lived and she should have died.
I made her cry in ways I wish I could wipe from my memory forever.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” she spat at me. Jim stood in the doorway, when he went to move in to stop us screaming at each other, she held up her hand. “No, he can say anything he wants, he can make me cry. I’ll take it and I’ll stand here and ball my eyes out in front of him.” She enunciated every word, pointing at me, and then Jim then back at me, even if I wanted to snap her fingers off. “You know why, ‘cause I love you, and love knows no bounds. You promised me if you made me cry, you’d be there to pick up the pieces and you will be, because I am not leaving.”
I’d screamed at her a lot more after that. Told her I’d break my promise and never look back, but the tears were streaming down my own face and I broke in a very different way, and then I was screaming and calling myself all the names under the sun for being a weakling, a fucking muppet who couldn’t take shit.
I was the asshole. I was the asshole who should die.
The pain got so much worse and I was begging her to kill me. To put me out of this misery, this horrendous, never-ending suffering.
Malaki fussed, she wiped the sweat and tears off my brow. When Alba came rushing in to help, she also never left my side, but I couldn’t process anything the two of them were telling me. Not anymore.
Rus, Apex said. You have to listen to me.
No! I screamed at him.
If you don’t listen to me, we will die.
I didn’t want to die, not really.
As a doctor, Jim will go for the only things he knows. Drugs. You cannot do this with drugs in your system.
Malaki came close to me, and I grabbed hold of her. “Please, I can’t take this.”
“Jim’s here. He’ll give you something for it. It will help.”
NO DRUGS! Apex was screaming inside me.
Jim filling the injection gun with fluid brought me around and into the present. “No,” I said, “No drugs, I have to do this. I have to cope.”
Tears streamed down my face. Malaki nodded at me, her face red. Her tears threatened to burst free, too. “No,” she said to Jim.
“He can’t take pain like this. No one can. His body will give out, his heart—”
He made to move around her, shouting at Alba to get her out of there. But Malaki stayed by my side. “No, this is his decision, and mine.”
I couldn’t listen as Jim and Malaki argued. Jim, though, in the end, backed down and came to my side, taking my hand in his with Alba’s. Malaki took my other.
“I’ve never seen anyone go through what you are,” he said. “But if you don’t want drugs, I won’t force you.”
I shook my head, fighting the agony within.
“I. D—d—on—t,” I managed to stammer.
“Then we’re right with you. Tell us what you need,” Malaki said.
“I—ice,” I stammered out.
“A bath of ice?” Jim asked.
I just about managed to get a nod out.
I hung on by a thread. Minutes, like hours. Hours passed like years.
A bath was wheeled in, but not quite what I was expecting.
“It will feel like ice,” Malaki said.
“We’ll need to use the hoist.” Jim nodded over at the winch to the side of the room.
“No, it will feel worse,” Malaki added.
“You’ve done this?” Jim asked, looking at her with a furrowed brow.
“Yes. I never even thought…” Her face flushed.
“Not your fault,” I said.
“We’ll do it together. Get him up, walk him in.” She moved in front of me so I could see her face. “Right? We can do this.”
I was lucky the bed dropped to a level it didn’t feel like I was going to fall, and it actually tipped me back upright.
Malaki tugged at the leather strap on her wrist. “This was what got me through the pain. Bite down on it, so you won’t bite your tongue. It’s yours.”
When the bed pulled back from me, my nerve endings were electrified.
Why does it hurt so much? I asked Apex.
Your body and your mind are getting used to the differences in electrical impulses. Your brain, not just what I am, has to get used to it. I will. I can adjust. I can dampen it for you. I need to filter out what I don’t need from what I do.
Everyone has to go through this?
To some degree, yes. You didn’t just jump in at basic, Rus. You jumped in at tier two. It was bound to hurt more.
Malaki eased my foot forward and I cried out. Each step, each breath, everything…I wanted to drop to the floor, curl into a ball, and die.
No, Apex said, you will not. Now walk. If you can’t get the basics of even walking, how are we supposed to fly a helo?
I could have been walking ten miles, not two steps. But I got to the bath, and they closed the door behind me. Standing position only.
I had never been in anything like this before, tech-wise. It spread up my body like liquid water, but it wasn’t water, it was ice. Cold, so cold.
“This has several hundred settings,” Jim said. “We’ll get it working right for you. Let us know what and when.”
The pattern was easy to see. The cold really helped, but my body would eventually go into shock. We had to use alternate therapies.
Jim went to get more and more nites, even if I couldn’t pay for them. He said he would. I was getting top-notch treatment off them, and I couldn’t protest. I didn’t have the strength. Not yet.
Malaki helped me drink protein shake after shake. The bath took my waste away and time passed.
I drifted in and out of consciousness. No pain relief, just pain, all the pain.
Eventually, it faded and faded some more.
The door opened and Malaki came in from showering in an en-suite bathroom. Where was I? This wasn’t the same hospital.
“You’re awake,” she said and rushed over. “Jim went for dinner, said he’d bring me some later.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “How long have I been out?”
She moved to a bag and pulled out her pink lip balm. Gently, she applied some, and I licked my lips. The silky-smooth feeling was satisfying.
“We had to move you.”
“Move me?”
“We’re at his home, outside the boundaries to Rise Hospital.”
“Mal, how long?”
“It’s April twenty-second.”
“Fuck.” I tried to get out of the bed thing.
