Chapter 10

  I did not, in fact, tumble into space.

  Yes, space was right there through the wide open portal of the bay, but something was keeping all the air in. I should have thought of that. Instead of getting up close and personal with hard vacuum, I ran smack dab into the largest stilling field I’d ever seen. One moment I was sailing through the air, the next I ran into something hard and tingly, and I did my best impression of a bug on a windshield.

  When I came to, I was on the deck again, lying on my back, and the System had a laundry list of new injuries that required my attention.

  HP [44/334]

  Status gained: Broken Bone [Collar]

  Status gained: Broken Bone [Ankle]

  Status gained: Broken Bone [Rib] x 3

  Status gained…

  Status gained…

  Status gained…

  Additionally, this close to the field I was getting that itching sensation in my gums and teeth but on an infuriating level that would have me wishing for death if death didn’t take me soon.

  I turned my head, coughing up blood as I did so, and I wasn’t sure which action caused me more pain, the turning or the coughing.

  The hangar was a popular place now and not just because people enjoyed watching me lose fights. People were shouting, running, fighting, falling. Others were doubled over or on the floor. Security forces were here in full riot gear, gas masks, batons and shields, bashing those they approached without regard for who it was. They were all Exotics, judging by how fast they moved and the ease at which they dealt with the crowd. I even saw some Abilities being used, electrifying weapons or empowering jumps to reposition groups of officers to hot spots. Similarly, the soldiers that had been my audience for my latest ass kicking were not going quietly. Even though they had zero chance against the System enhanced guards, they were putting up a fight. Something had happened while I was out.

  Flashing lights strobed and pulsed on the far end of the bay, and some kind of fire suppression system was currently pouring a thick, white fog from vents in the ceiling and walls. The air was already hazy with it, now that I was looking.

  My breaths were coming in rapid, shallow gasps already, when I wasn’t coughing, and my condition wasn’t getting any better.

  I thought about calling for help but froze, mouth open, before my plea could escape my throat. I’d recalled something the Novas had said.

  Marshals. They said security around here were Marshals. Get caught by those guys, and I’m getting tossed in a cell. Got to find another way.

  It took colossal effort, a good amount of agonized cursing, and no small amount of assistance from my prosthetic to get me into a crawling position. Standing was right out, considering how many broken bones I had and the weird pressure I felt in my core. I could, however, manage a three point army crawl on my elbows and knees.

  But where to go? The fog was thickening quickly, casting everything in hazy silhouette, and my body was starting to protest at its lack of oxygen. I couldn't seem to get enough air in my lungs… plenty of blood, though, which came out frothy pink.

  Think. Where are we going? We’re suffocating. We’re in a hangar.

  I squinted, straining my eyes to see through the fog something that could help me.

  We’re in a hangar. Hangars have ships. Ships like to keep their air supply on the inside.

  Okay. I needed a ship. There were three, if I recalled correctly. One warship that looked like a fighter or a gunship and two transports. I needed one of the transports, because I sure as shit wasn’t climbing a ladder into a cockpit right now.

  My new goal firmly in place, I forced my crippled body forward in the general direction of where I remembered seeing the blocky troop transports. I just had to hope the last soldier out of the hold hadn’t locked the door, and none of the Marshals were paying enough attention to notice the bloody Exotic slithering across the floor.

  Soon, it was a white out or at least what I assumed white out conditions to be. I’d never seen snow. The point was that I was blind, and I was forced, once again, to rely on Detect Iron for navigation. On the upside, my pain was lessening as my HP climbed into the sixties and my internal bleeding started to sort itself out.

  Thankfully, my sense of direction didn’t fail me, and my heart skipped a metaphorical beat when the shining presence of a ramp appeared at the edge of my awareness. I crawled toward it and up. Anchor kicked in as I hit the edge of the ramp, somehow counting what I was doing as climbing. Immediately, my body felt lighter, and my journey got that much easier, all the way up into the hold. The coughing, however, wasn’t getting any better. It wracked my body, threatening to double me over and eject dinner from my stomach.

  I stopped crawling only when I got all the way into the transport’s hold. Detect Iron cast the whole area in a bright white with rows of firmly secured chairs meant to keep people in their seats in zero g. I was also getting hits for lots and lots of fittings underneath each chair, circular with flared ends meant for washers. A quick flip through my other forms of Detect confirmed they were hollow.

  That’s what I needed. Hollow piping. Hollow piping meant gas, hopefully my favorite type of gas. There was a special shape to the mouth of the piping, probably meant to be a fit for a special kind of nozzle.

  I chose a chair at random, pulling myself up and into the seat, fingers fumbling blindly for some kind of mask or hose or… anything. Nothing presented itself, though. Other than a fabric harness to keep the passenger in the chair, there was nothing that could help me. I checked underneath, my fingers feeling for anything plastic or soft.

  Nothing.

  “Fuck!” I shouted between coughs. My lungs were taking in great gobs of air, but it was almost all devoid of oxygen now.

  The air had to be right there, waiting for me, but I couldn’t get to it. I also realized I couldn’t just blast myself in the face with oxygen and hope for the best.

  It’s chems. The fire suppression is chemical. Think. I need… air. Tube. Seal.

  In a blink, I had my pistol in my hand, and a quick Shaping helped me detach the barrel. I practically jammed the end of it into the opening. Then I put a finger on the mouth of the (hopefully)life support housing, sending a probe of mana inside. There was the tube, the valve, a secondary valve, all separate pieces I couldn’t Shape properly without touching them.

  I was gradually getting tired of breathing, tired of coughing. I didn’t have the energy to care like I knew I should have. Death was knocking on the door.

  Please let this work. Please let this work.

  I’d need to break in to get at the oxygen. So, I saturated what I could, the singular pipe that was meant to bring air to the passengers. I widened it and widened it, moving individual molecules around next to the valves until they no longer created a good seal.

  *SSSSHHHSHHHSHHHHHH*

  When air started to leak from my makeshift tube, I could barely muster the will to get off the chair and put my mouth on it, but my oxygen deprived mind coalesced on the thought that it would have been a shame to do all that work and not at least have a taste, right? So, I slid from my seat and had a little suck on my straw.

  It tasted like plastic, mildew, and chemical disinfectant, but it was most certainly oxygen. It was the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth.

  That perked me right up. Oh wow, did it perk me up. Holy hell was I ready to not die. I took big, greedy hits of oxygen once, twice, over and over back to back. With every breath, I felt a thousand times better. My wounds felt less urgent. My nerves felt electric, my mind racing.

  Okay, Ryan. We’re alive for now. We’re better than alive. Now let’s get to work.

  —----------------------

  I awoke again on a cot in a large room with dimmed lights and a strong antiseptic smell. I didn’t wake gently either. My last memory was a blur, a foggy recollection of building something, something amazing, something to rival Edison’s lightbulb or Tanaka’s Zero Particle, but I’d been too weak to finish. Strange. The thought was right there on the cusp of my consciousness. What was it? Something had happened to me. I’d been taken by… things, babbling, slavering things. Before I could finish.

  The scourge had taken me.

  When my eyes fluttered open I was already sitting upright, my arms and legs scrambling and my blood racing like I’d been running a marathon. Apparently, my body was alive, and it was making damn sure it was going to stay that way, even if it had to punch a hole space.

  “Doc! Doc! Uh- Code! It’s a code- uh.”

  Someone was shouting or trying to. He sounded unsure of himself as if he was trying to choose between a whisper and a panicked scream.

  The thin sheets someone had put on top of me while I’d been out were the only things that stopped me from being up and swinging as soon as my body decided it was time. The sheets tangled around my feet and sent me tumbling down to the ground.

  “Doc! He’s… He’s going nuts. Code uh… red? Oh, it’s gray! Code gray!”

  Hands slipped around my midsection, but I was able to break the hold easily. The sheets, however, proved to be a much more capable hindrance. My feet kicked ineffectually, the sheets having just enough give to not rip and let me be completely free.

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  “Calm down, son. It’s alright. You’re alright,” a gravelly voice,whispered in the same tone you’d use to tame a wild animal. A gentle hand grabbed onto my wrist, and, for some reason, its lack of hostility kept me from struggling against it.

  Face down on the cold metal floor, one hand being held by an unknown party, my mind finally caught up with my body.

  Words. They were using words. Scourge didn’t do that.

  I blinked, wiped sweat from my forehead, only to find my arm bandaged. That was… unexpected.

  “There you are. That’s a good lad,” the gravelly voice said. “Come out of it.”

  I rolled over, heaving for breath, though I didn’t remember why. Everything was so fuzzy.

  The first thing I saw when my faculties returned to me was a largely destroyed cot. No surprise there. I wasn’t easy on cots. Also near me, close enough to reach out and touch but not so close they couldn’t back away if I turned violent again, were two people, one a young-ish man, no older than me, in the thin blue clean-wear common with medics and the like and a set of askew glasses. The other man was much older, weathered and weary looking as if he were a piece of treated leather that had seen too many days in the sun, a strange pairing with his blue clean-wear. The stubble on his face shone stark white against his skin, and an elaborate medallion danged from his neck on a braided cord, a four pointed star on an incomplete circular background

  The older man spoke again, his voice containing an easy but firm authority. “There now. Are we calm, young man?” he asked, raising a questioning eyebrow as if an answer in the negative would disappoint him greatly.

  After a moment’s consideration, I nodded slowly. The old man nodded along with me with quiet satisfaction.

  “Pupils are normal. Response to stimuli is timely. Very good. Glad you’re back with us, sooner than expected, I might add. Considering the copious amount of drugs in your system, I had you down for a violent wake-up no earlier than tomorrow morning.” His smile never left his face as he turned to the younger man, who was busy massaging his hand and giving me dirty looks.

  “Go run that under the imager, Isea.”

  “It’s fine, doc. Just twisted it,” Isea replied, frowning, obviously hesitant to tell Doc the truth.

  “Go. Now. Don’t come back without a scan and a diagnosis to go with it,” Doc ordered, his tone brooking no argument. “I’ll sit with our friend here, for now.”

  Isea looked down at me with trepidation, still cradling his hand. “What if he-”

  “He’s alright now, Isea. Look at him. He’s out of the worst of it. Go, and hurry back.”

  Hesitantly, Isea cast one last worried glance at us then walked purposefully to somewhere I couldn’t see.

  Doc held out a gnarled, trembling hand for me to take. I did, but I made sure not to let him take any of my weight, old and frail looking as he was. A tearing sound accompanied the bending of my legs, and I looked down to see a medical splint lying uselessly on the floor.

  Doc’s easy smile turned pained. “Ah. Another oversight on my part. Don’t get a lot of Exotic customers down here. I wasn’t sure what you needed or how much, so I erred on the side of caution. Made a sizeable dent in my supply of anti narcotics and burn ointment.”

  He produced a battered tin cup and offered it to me, which I took and downed the contents.

  Now that I was looking, I wasn’t the only patient in the room. There were cots everywhere in neat lines, racks with IV stands lined up to match. Nothing was in good condition, with hardly a straight line in the place. The cots were all crooked, patched, and jury rigged to keep them functional. The IV stands were missing hangers. The few machines I could see were old with aftermarket buttons and switches installed as well as cables that had been taped dozens of times.

  Not all the beds were full, but those that were held people in various states of waking or sleeping. A handful of the more aware ones were giving me flinty stares, propped up on their cots or sitting there to watch what I’d do next. They looked ready to get to their feet at any moment despite their conditions.

  “Thank you,” I rasped, draining the last drop out of the cup and holding it out for the Doc.

  “Thank me after you see the bill,” Doc laughed. “I wasn’t kidding about how much was done to save you.”

  My stomach sank. I had the money from Philipe, but I really didn’t know how much that was. I hoped it covered everything. I also didn’t want to leave this man in the lurch or go into debt.

  The Doc put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Only half joking, son. Pay when you can, if you can.”

  “Your assistant, Isea,” I began, frightened to ask the question. “Did I-”

  “Yes. You did,” Doc answered soberly “You’re strong, and you weren’t in control of yourself. I fear I’ll have my other assistants on double shifts for a while.”

  I felt heavy, my guilt pulling me inexorably down. “Sorry. I didn’t- You said I was on narcotics?”

  The old man grinned. “Enough to wet a whole damned company and then some. They found you passed out in a Gurge. You’d somehow tapped into the medical line and directly piped it into… well, they called it a helmet. I’d call it a pain in the ass to remove.”

  My brows furrowed. “Medical… I was… wearing a uh- helmet?”

  “Oh, yes. Had to call in a machinist friend to cut it off of you.”

  “I tapped into the life support, so I could breathe. I needed air. I was- Wait… There were two valves, weren’t there?”

  The Doc nodded, his eyes crinkling at their corners. “Indeed. Life support is one thing, but that wasn’t enough for you. Oh, no. You decided to drug the hell out of yourself over the course of an hour and a half. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re awake and calm right now. Overdosing on praegerline can have serious long term effects. I’ve seen it happen, though not as much nowadays. Happened too often during the last Reclamation.”

  My stomach sank, thinking about the guy I’d hurt in my waking moments. “Again, I’m sorry for hurting your assistant. I thought- I wasn’t in control.”

  “Part of the job, I’m afraid, and also partially my fault,” Doc lamented, reaching up to finger the medallion he wore. “We don’t get a lot of your kind in here, but you are far from the only fighter I’ve had on my table. I should have put you out for longer, at least until the drugs were completely out of your system.”

  I frowned at that, frustrated at myself. “Don’t feel bad. I don’t know how I work either. One of the beautiful things about being me,” I said before asking: “Where am I, by the way?”

  “Local decks, core side, Service Quarter Suite 6,” Doc announced, but when he saw the look on my face, he shook his head ruefully. “You have no idea what I just said.”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  The Doc glanced around the room, seeming to debate on how much time he was willing to devote to this conversation. Then he seemed to come to an acceptable decision. “Have you heard of the expression “wrong side of the tracks? They use it a lot in old movies. You watch old Earth stuff?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. You’ve found yourself on the wrong side of the tracks.” He glanced around the room again and leaned in close. “At the same time, I gather that our side of the tracks is the only place you will find any welcome.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, my gears turning as I processed things. ”I wasn’t brought here by security was I?”

  Doc shook his head and leaned in closer. “I don’t know your situation, son, but your holo is being flashed in front of every set of eyes on this half of the station. Whatever you’ve done, it has the Marshals crossing the gap in numbers like they haven’t done in years.”

  “I- What? Crossing the gap… So, they’re looking for me?”

  “Very much so, and you, my friend, are very lucky to be where you are. There is no love lost between Brightside and us. If security finds any willing informants among the brothers and sisters, I will be very surprised.”

  “So, who brought me here?” I asked.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather keep the names to a minimum. Yours. Theirs. Mine if they catch you,” Doc said with more mirth than the words deserved.

  So, I was off the books, hidden. Whoever had brought me in wanted me to live, at least. That left the Novas out. Plus, they would know that as long as I had HP, I’d be alright eventually. That left vanilla humans…

  My eyes went to the medallion the Doc wore, and a memory rose to the surface.

  “It was that guy wasn’t it? Military guy. Tall. Intense. A woman too.”

  The Doc’s face gave me nothing, but he fingered the medallion he wore significantly. The symbol was similar to what the strange captain wore next to his rank.

  I nodded my head as I put the pieces together. Now that I could look around, I saw similar symbols everywhere, broken circles and four pointed stars. Every cot had a dangling chain with a pendant on it at the head of the bed. More of the symbols hung from the ceiling, spinning and colliding gently in the lazy air currents from the ventilation system. In the corner, a stack of two shelves with lit candles burned, more of the medallions wrapped around the stems and slowly being subsumed by melted wax.

  This better not be a cult thing. Well, if it is, I hope it’s a helpful one.

  Isea came back into the room through a plastic curtain with his hand splinted, a disappointed look on his face as he reported his condition to Doc.

  “Broken. Two fingers,” he said in his best impression of calm and professional. He did his level best not to make eye contact with me, but I could tell he was seething.

  “That’s too bad,” Doc sighed. “I’ll call in Nat to take your shift. You are welcome to stay if you still want to watch and learn as long as you don’t get in the way.”

  Isea bowed his head, resigned. “Yeah. I’ll stay. Sorry I can’t-”

  “Stop it. It’s not your fault,” Doc said. “And we’ll get by.”

  I stepped forward and awkwardly extended a hand. “I apologize, Isea. I… I didn’t mean to hurt you. Thank you for taking care of me anyway.”

  Isea looked at my hand as if I was handing him a fresh turd, but the look was brief. He schooled his features into a professional neutrality then reached out with his good hand to shake.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” Isea sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

  “Tried to grab me from behind?” I asked.

  He nodded. The guy had seen a runaway Exotic and decided to wrestle them to the ground. He had to have known how dangerous that was to a normal human. My respect for him went up several notches.

  “You did the right thing, Isea. Not sure what I’d do if I hurt anyone else.”

  That brightened Isea’s face significantly.

  “Well, if you are alright and not on the rampage anymore, I have patients to attend, Mr. uh- Smith.”

  I reached out and shook Doc’s hand too. “Mr. Smith,” I affirmed. “Pleased to meet you. And thanks for everything.”

  Once the Doc shuffled off, I looked around, down at my wrecked cot, at the other patients watching me. They all looked to be in rough shape. There were broken bones, bandages, and even stumps from severed appendages. Detect Iron gave me hits of blood underneath the clean bandages I could see and a good bit where it wasn’t supposed to be.

  “Doc’s not a regular doc is he?” I asked Isea just as he was about to leave as well.

  “Uh- How do you mean” Isea asked.

  “No sick people here.”

  He shrugged. “I guess. Diving’s dangerous work. We mainly get Divers here.”

  Diving… Right.

  I left that one alone for now. I’d figure it out later. The Marshals were looking for me out there. The Novas probably wanted me dead. I needed time to think…

  And I owed someone a favor…

  “So what do we do?” I asked.

  Isea tilted his head to the side and adjusted his glasses. “Pardon?”

  “What do we do?” I asked again, pinching the end of the adhesive bandage between my metal fingers and starting to unwrap. I knew I’d find healed, unblemished skin beneath, as I always did. My HP was full, and I was without any Status effects.

  I explained: “I broke your fingers and cracked your wrist. I want to make it up to you. You obviously don’t want to leave, and you feel responsible for your duties. What do we need to do?”

  Isea looked taken aback. “I- I didn’t say anything about the wrist.”

  “Well, it’s cracked,” I said.

  “I know it’s cracked, but how did you know that?” he asked. His eyes narrowed, the suspicion that I’d been awake when I’d done the deed blossoming in his mind.

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Relax. It’s just a trick of mine. It’s got a crack right about here,” I said, pointing at my own wrist. Magnesium was a key component of the molecular structure of our bones, and I just so happened to be able to sense that kind of thing. “What’s important is that I want to help. You’re an apprentice right? That means you do things Doc doesn’t have time for. Can I lend you a hand?” I wiggled my prosthetic fingers in front of my face.

  The young man blinked twice before his mind caught up with my proposal. “Uh. There’s hundreds of things to do. Just little stuff. Maintain equipment. Fix little things. Clean. Sharpen. You don’t have to do all- I can manage,” Isea protested.

  “Fix things, you say?” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “You, sir, came to the right guy for that.”

  “But I didn’t come to you..”

  “Work with me here, Isea.”

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