NOW THAT THE LIGHT HAS SEEN YOU, IT WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU
You winced your eyes shut and shook your head slowly. Joseph’s huge hand rested gently on your shoulder, dwarfing it, and that gesture pulled you out of the memory. That was a memory, right? The fish was dead. You heard it say that before, right?
“Another hallucination, friend?” vir voice came from within the darkness.
You took a deep breath. “A memory, I think.” What did the fish even mean by that. Other than, trauma.
“I’m sorry that it’s troubling you, Simon,” vie said, patting your shoulder before releasing it.
You opened your eyes to look at vir again. Vie had requested your presence in vir office as the transport was nearing dock. The screens lining vir office were turned on this time, displaying different sets of information—several about the status of the transport itself, several others had information about Derin station, even more had instructions on docking procedures for the station, a couple had a docking timer, and several displayed different camera angles from what had to be the exterior hull of the transport, showing the station growing imperceptibly closer by the second.
Had you skirmished here before? Stations didn’t always look obviously different from each other, but most had a feature or two that made them distinct, and for some reason this station seemed familiar, at least from the outside.
Vie tapped near your PII, which sat on vir desk between you. “You have been managing your own medication usage with your PII—very good, I’ve been keeping track. Report from medical states that you have been able to walk increasing distances but are not fully ambulatory yet, so, I will be accompanying you to the medical center once we’ve docked. They’ll give you a thorough physical and from there decide whether you need to stay with them, or are capable of living on your own and simply coming in to see them for medications and check ups.” Vie tapped on your PII and with a practiced hand, opened a map program even from vir upside down angle. “I’m not sure how much, if at all, you’ve interacted with your PII since I gave it to you, but as an introduction, this here is a map program that will automatically open the most current map for any station, outpost, or transport you are on. It has triangulated positioning, so it will give you a live-updated status of where you are. Until you learn the layout of Derin Station, this will be vital. Before you arrived in my office, I was able to communicate with the governance of Derin to update your status as a resident, enroll you in their station chat, and get your credentials synced with the intranet there. I’ve forwarded all of this already to your PII, and everything will automatically load up when your PII connects to the station’s intranet. That includes a set of pins on your map notating important locations throughout the station; your apartment, the medical center, the Commons, my office, as well as others.”
“All personnel, prepare for docking in T-minus 7 minutes,” came a voice over the loudspeaker in the room.
“You are welcome to visit my office at any time—during office hours, of course. You can always message me, as well, and I will respond as soon as I’m able to. If I’m not on station, one of my secretaries will do their best to assist you, or pass you onto one of my colleagues—very likely that would be Anseh, as at her age she doesn’t much get off the station, and I trust her with your case the most of the council,” vie continued.
Your attention had drifted to the screens that lined the office, and though you were listening, absorbing the information that Joseph was giving you, your mind was also elsewhere. “Is there a curfew?”
“There is a sleep cycle period. It’s not expected for residents to be tucked into bed on the exact dot of when sleep cycle starts, but there are noise and behavior ordinances during this period, and the vast majority of public figures will not be available during this time.” You looked to vir with question on your face. “The council, medical will be in emergency receiving mode, stall owners, the like.”
“Stall owners…” you asked slowly.
“Folks who prepare food, as well as traders.” Whatever the look on your face was made vir chuckle. “I’m guessing Eden has nothing of the sort.” Vie paused to
receive your head shake. “As you had asked previously, food acquisition is left up to your devices, and that is facilitated by talented food preparation artists who utilize stock from hydroponics to craft various dishes from, and they keep stalls in the Commons during the waking cycle. There is no compensation required on your part to acquire food in this way. As for traders, they keep stalls dedicated to specific crafts and offer materials to those skilled who can trade them different materials. This is the method I referred to previously of how you may acquire chosen clothing; with trading your time or acquired materials, fibercraftsfolk are one of the types of traders that keep stalls on several of the COI’s stations.”
You nodded along, mentally comparing that information to what Kerry had previously told you. Even though this was confirmation to what they had said, it was still difficult to wrap your head around. How were there enough resources that they weren’t kept under tight regulation by the council and it’s enforcers? You shook your head at the thought. “That is… so different from Eden. I’m having trouble even imagining what that looks like.”
You got distracted by the screens on the wall again as Joseph explained how the stalls were set up in the Commons ring; the cameras on the outer hull of the transport were showing it’s docking procedure, and Derin Station’s dock was much larger than Eden’s. As vie described something about alcoves that allowed shopkeeps to separate themselves and their stock from their patrons by a desk not unlike virs, you noted just how many other ships were docked. You knew the Consolidation had far more resources within their conglomerate than Eden, but it was mindboggling to see. “How.. big is Derin Station?”
“It’s the second largest in the Consolidation. I believe, by square footage, it’s three-fifths the size of Eden, if decades-old records are to go by. I personally find that fascinating, as it makes me wonder what all Eden has in it, knowing just how big and sprawling Derin is. It’s size is also the reason we’ve been so concerned about your ambulation; with the extent of your injuries and how long you’ve been bed-bound, it’s a hell of a trek between any two points for even the most abled bodied.”
“No shit…” you muttered in agreeance, eyes still glued to the screens. One of the screens on the outer hull of the transport showed the ship’s slowed descent come to a halt at a docking bay, and a set of airlock bridges extending toward the ship. “So… you’re gonna take me down to medical and.. then what?”
Vir words were clear and pointed, as if vie didn’t want to have to repeat virself a third time. “Medical is going to give you a thorough screening so they can gauge a baseline of your condition and come up with a plan to further your healing. Medical is where we’ll part ways for today. Your case is unique; normally I’d have those
whom I’m handling come to my office, and then if they’re from off-station, show them to their quarters. If by some miracle, medical considers you independent enough that you don’t need to stay with them for any amount of time, you’ll be free to head to your quarters, or explore the station at your pace. You’re a sharp fellow, and with the map on your PII, I have all the faith that you’ll find your way just fine. My personal judgment is they’ll want to keep you for at least a few sleep cycles to monitor you—but I’m no medic,” vie chuckled. “Once you’ve been deemed independent enough by the medical center, send me a message and we’ll schedule your first integration class.”
At vir mention of the little tablet, you patted the pocket on your jumpsuit where you had put it, your fingers not finding it’s silhouette—oh right, it was on the desk. “Uh. What does happen if I lose or break this thing?” you asked, moving to pick it up and put it back into your pocket for safe keeping.
Joseph leaned forward on vir desk, placing vir elbows on the wood and crossing vir fingers in front of vir face, giving you a menacing look. “Don’t.”
Vir scrutiny made you recoil back into your chair, shrinking like you were a little kid under Father’s eye again.
Vie gave you a mischievous smile from behind vir hands. “While I am quite serious on that, if by chance it does happen, come see me. You’ll have to work to replace it, but we’ll get you a replacement. They’re hardy little machines, so it’s hard to completely break them, and they’re easily repaired, and their triangulated tracking means they’re hard to permanently lose, unless it’s in the vacuum of space.”
You nodded smally. Then the thought occurred to you; “What… is the work situation…?” No one had described it to you yet. There was obviously an expectation of working, considering the talk of the “capability testing” and that no one lives for free anywhere.
Vie sat up and back in vir chair. “That’s what the capability questionnaire is for. And, of course, medical’s thorough screening. A fully able-bodied member of the Consolidation is expected to put in at least 8 hours of time per cycle doing tasks that they are deemed capable of, if they are a permanent resident on a station, though the vast majority of members see service on various ships and transports. On assignment, you work as your task and position needs you, with an expectation of 10 hours of rest each cycle, maximum. You’ll go over this in more detail with the integration classes, and this is just an overview. It’s likely that until you’re fully healed, your only expectation will be to rest and familiarize yourself with life in the Consolidation.”
You nodded, digesting that. One of the screens on the wall caught your eye, seeing the transport was fully connected and crew was beginning to offload supplies from the trip.
“Any final questions before we head off ourselves?” vie encouraged.
You watched the screen for a few moments, thinking. “Will I… be kept apprised of the findings from the blood moon?”
Joseph’s face made a motion you weren’t sure what it meant. Not even the “you asked a question above your class”, but, something close. “I would have thought you would want to be done with that whole matter, but,” vie trailed off, picking vir words carefully. “I don’t want to say ‘no’. You’re the first person who should know, and you are an extremely valuable asset to piecing together what some of the data is telling. But I am not the only one on the council, and I cannot be the only judge of the classification of that information.” Vie paused again to pick vir words. “Based on your medical screening, future progress in healing your brain—if you are deemed capable of carrying that mental weight—and the official statement I will eventually ask of you on what happened down there, I will happily make the argument of the council to allow you access to the information we gather. It’s only fair you know what happened to you. However… Knowing the delicacy of the situation, do not get your hopes up.”
You nodded quietly. You thought back to the image of the fish, strung up in the tow ship’s cargo bay, so huge it had to be folded back on itself to clear the airlock. How the fuck were they going to transport that thing through this station? Especially secretly.
“You seem a bit troubled?”
You shook your head just a bit. “No, uh. I just. Feel like I have a score to settle with that fish. It nearly ate me.” You looked at your forearm and the bandaging there.
Vie were quiet for a moment. “As one might expect. But. Consider the score settled, with it being dead, hm? Or, that, moving forward is winning the fight.”
Vie were right. It was dead, not much more you could do to it that warheads didn’t already do. You nodded in response to that.
“Shall we head out then?” vie asked as vie moved to stand. Your nod prompted vir to round vir desk and take control of your wheelchair, moving you along with vir out into the hall and down into the maze of corridors.
The transport ship was so huge, that even through what felt like kilometers of hallway, the two of you didn’t see a single soul, even though you could hear announcements being made over the intercom, and knew that disembarking procedures were ongoing. Eventually, you reached a crew disembarkation zone, and exited the transport through the airlock bridge. As thankful as you were to not be being forced to walk, you also felt odd, powerless--the longer you traveled, the more awareness you had of the feeling. Aside from a freak accident on a transport that skinned both your knees nearly to the bone, you’d always been fit and able to run circles around even your Brothers; being reduced to relying on someone else to even move you around didn’t much help you feel free.
Joseph spoke up, pulling your attention from your feeling of powerlessness, as you bypassed several airlocks and entered the station proper; “You should follow along with your PII as we travel; it should have updated now that you’re on station and it’ll give you practice using the map.”
“Uh, sure,” you replied, moving to grab it from your pocket.
Maneuvering it as you moved was a task in and of itself, with how stiff your hand still was. Eventually, you figured out balancing it on your leg and holding it still with the meat of your hand allowed you to stabilize it and tap around on it’s screen. Following the pathing vie showed you earlier, a simple but easily parseable map opened with a tap. In the top right corner of the screen, there was a square that said R1. There was a slowly blinking dot on the screen, located inside the maze-like lines, and it moved pixel by pixel as you did. There were square crosshairs on the map, similar to the ones on the canvas map from the expedition—you stared at them for a disproportionate amount of time; why did that of all things get you? Taking a shaky breath, you tapped on one of them; it opened a dialogue box that stated the point of interest you tapped was the central elevator that led to the different rings of the station. Tapping off the dialogue box closed it. Curiosity outweighed the trauma, and you subsequently tapped on each of the crosshairs you could find in the vicinity; the others included a Community Center, Information Center, and The Trading Commons.
Based on the appearance of the section of the station you were in, you were in a service hall, and based on the map, were moving toward the central elevator. Joseph had been right, there was no fucking way you’d have been able to walk this by yourself, and you weren’t even sure how vie were doing this amount of walking, with you in tow, not at least without needing a break. As vie approached what looked to be a freighter elevator, a thought occurred to you; you tapped out of the map program, and over to your medication tracker. When was the last time you took meds? While you figured the medical center wouldn't put you through a slough of tests without updated meds, trusting that was hard, and it felt imperative in your brain to know and advocate for yourself. 6 hours ago on the nerve blocker, 8 on general meds. They were holding strong, so far, but the window for when the nerve blocker wore off was closing in fast—it usually lasted 8 hours or so, and you knew that figure well now that you’d been able to time it with that little tablet.
“We have record from the researcher who was mutating, stating that her skin turned into pure nerve endings.” Remembering that sentence coming out of David’s mouth made you shudder. What the fuck was that blood shit… And the thought that it had done that to you was something you’d been stewing on for a while. You chewed the inside of your cheek as Joseph stopped you and moved to interact with the elevator.
Vie spotted your jaw working and asked, “Hungry?”
You shook your head; “Thinking,” you grumbled. “Just… what the fuck did that blood do to me…?”
Vie gave you an empathetic look. “We’ll find out.”
“Have you seen my medical records?”
“I have.”
You drew a shaky in breath as the elevator arrived. “...Are you going to send anyone else back to that fucking moon?”
Vie were quiet as vie moved to take back up your chair and move you into the elevator. “It’s too early to say,” vie said as vie hit a destination button on the control panel. “But. With the sheer amount of information we received from the SM-8’s black box, the photos you took, and the specimen, we may not have to.” A
more composed sigh of relief left your chest. Joseph’s hand pressed onto your shoulder as the elevator moved. “Don’t let anyone tell you that what you accomplished was anything short of a miracle—not even yourself. What you’ve sacrificed is invaluable, and we owe you much more than just getting you back in working order.”
You twisted to look up and back at vir. Vie nodded, vir face sincere.
“David’s told me you’re having a hard time accepting that we’re not secretly going to kill you—his words, not mine. I want you to hear this straight from me; I am the final authority of what happens to you within the Consolidation—no one can pass judgment upon you without my word. I recognize the great deed that you’ve accomplished, and what it means for the Consolidation—for humanity. I know there’s not much we can do to make it up to you for the horrors you’ve experienced, but I hope we can provide for you all the same. When folks refer to you as a valuable member of the Consolidation, know that you are valuable.”
“How does what I did in that sub make up for Filament Station?” you grumbled.
Vie were quiet until the elevator reached it’s destination. “Well. That wasn’t your fault, was it?”
You felt your face fall into a frown. Vie didn’t say anything further as the elevator door opened and vie moved to begin to roll you again.
You twisted back to sit correctly, face wrinkled in uncertainty. It was hard to believe vir, and every gut instinct screamed not to. You also didn’t have much of a choice in not trusting vir. This was your life now, and if the person responsible for your ultimate judgment was being a benevolent benefactor, how could you turn your nose up at it?
Your eyes fell to the little tablet in your lap; the map had changed, and now displayed R2 in the upper right hand corner. Ring 2? It even kept track of which ring you were on? That’s handy. The layout of this ring was even more mazelike than the previous one, but Joseph seemed to be headed toward a large complex that many of the halls were built around. There was a crosshairs on the complex that when you clicked on it, it declared that to be the medical center. Seemed pretty easy to pick out. Other points of interest in this new locale included Joseph’s office, Anseh’s office, Council Meeting Hall, Maintenance HQ, and half a dozen other offices you didn’t recognize the names of their owners.
As you traveled, you finally encountered other people; a couple passed with brief nods, and another greeted Joseph by name—each gave you a curious glance.
“How many permanent residents are there of the station?” you eventually asked.
“About 50, give or take. There are many more that are considered residents, but are often on mission elsewhere,” vie replied. “The station typically supports around 200 people a day.”
As Joseph approached the medical center, you slipped the little tablet back into your pocket. The complex’s front door slid open at your approach, and vie wheeled you inside. A medic behind the desk just inside looked up, then to her computer to check something, then stood.
“Joseph, magister, welcome back. Safe trip?” she greeted as she moved out from behind the desk.
“Safe and brief, safe and brief,” vie replied, the greeting and response feeling like it was a common salutation.
“And Simon, sir,” she offered a soft hand for you to shake; you did out of courtesy. It was alien to be called by your name by someone you knew to be part of the COI... Years of “convict” had worn on you. And, sir? You certainly weren’t used to that. “I’m Lea, I’ll be one of your medic team. We’ve been expecting your arrival; I’ll bring you back to meet the rest of your team, and we can get started.”
Joseph stepped away from your chair and into your field of view. “Keep me updated on your status. I’ll message you tomorrow to check in if I don’t hear from you this evening. You can always message me any questions or concerns you have as well.”
You nodded to vir. “Thank you, magister.”
“Speedy recovery, my friend,” vie gave you a smile and headed off.
Lea waved to vir before turning back to you. “Would you be opposed to walking? Your file says you’ve been getting better with the transport team, but I would like to gauge how well you’re doing for myself.”
“Sure,” you replied, moving to stand, grabbing your satchel as you did. If anything, it was a relief to finally be out of that chair and under your own power again. You were stiff, as usual, more so even after sitting in that specific chair for so long, and Lea stayed at the ready to help you if it seemed as though you were to have any sudden weakness.
She gave you a nod as you seemed stable on your feet, and deemed it safe to leave your side; she moved the chair to a corner of the tiny lobby, then gestured for you to follow her.
“Uh. How much do you know about what.. uh, happened?” you asked as she led you through more winding corridors.
She walked backwards through the hallways, watching how you shifted your weight and kept a watchful eye out for any distress. “We know your case is evolving, and that there is classified information involved. Information that has been deemed classified but also necessary to your treatment has been declassified solely for us as your medical team; that includes anything you tell us that we find out later was classified.”
Okay, that’s, good to know, but wasn’t very clear. “Like?”
“We know that you were sent to explore an ocean of blood, and that the substance mutated parts of your body. Scans today will find out more about how much has been affected and how,” she said professionally.
“There’s, more to find out?” That was ominous, paired with the info that the scans from on the transport had already found.
“There’s always more to find out,” she said playfully. “The transport was equipped with scanners that are just okay, and geared more toward every day issues; we have scanners here that are far more in depth and powerful, and should give us much clearer answers. If at any time during tests today you need any help at all, even for us to pause a test, please let us know; what you went through sounds awful, and we’ll do our best to facilitate you.”
She stopped at a doorway, and gestured for you to enter. The room was about the size of the med bay on the tow ship, and was lined with several different enormous machines. There was both an exam chair and a bed along one wall, and Lea followed you inside and moved to direct you toward the chair. As you headed that way, you caught sight of two more medics in the room, each looking to be busy with getting machines set up. You set your satchel at the foot of the chair, and as you sat down, you noticed a third fellow in the room, who stood up from a rolling chair across the room and approached.
“Simon, good to finally meet you,” he said, offering a hand to shake. He was an older gentleman, delicate in build but still seemed spry.
His voice was incredibly familiar, “ Wait, Doctor Beckett?” The psychologist you spoke with? The distance between the station and the moon was too great to have gotten a video feed to bounce through the relay, so you hadn’t seen him, only heard him.
He nodded as you shook his hand. “I’m going to be part of your medical team, of course; I hope you don’t mind my sitting in on the tests today, I wanted to get a baseline on your current mental health as the team here got a baseline on your physical health. Especially as I see you were able to start on anti-psychotics once you were on the transport; how has that been going?”
“Good, great. Uh, it’s been helping the hallucinations a lot, and the nightmares too.”
“Good, good! Once the team is done here, I’ll jump back in to schedule our first session here. But, I’ll let these folks get started,” he said, giving you a nod before he headed back to where he’d been seated, and picked up a tablet, probably to take notes.
“Could I have you remove your clothing?” Lea requested. Your face must have given her a look, as she continued: “The team on AT-5 noted several minor injuries that the transport team doesn’t seem to have followed up on, so we need to check everything for your baseline; if this blood stuff mutated you so badly it needed to be surgically excised, we can’t let anything go undocumented.”
You nodded, that made sense. You unzipped your jumpsuit, then leaned down to unlace and kick off your boots. At least that was the easy part; getting them tied again was going to require you to ask for help. As you stood to let the jumpsuit fall off you and toe off your socks, one of the other medics came over from where he had been messing with one of the machines, a tablet in his hand.
He offered you a handshake with his free hand in greeting. “Caleb, I’m your radiotech.” You took his hand--he gave you a strong handshake that nearly threw you off balance. “Last but not least is Margie,” he stated, gesturing to the last medic who was still fighting with one of the computers. “Zhe’s your pain management specialist, but, zhe’s trying to get your previous test results rendered and compare them to the declassified information we have, but it’s been—”
“It’s been hell in a handbasket; it’s like the files are cursed,” zhe spoke up from across the room, not moving a muscle from where zhe sat. “Normally, once a transport docks and files upload to the hub, we just get them. The council must be declassifying things as we speak, only thing I can think of being the issue.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they are cursed, considering what I went through,” you said, hopefully just loud enough for her to hear.
“We’ll start on the basics, you keep fighting, Margie,” Lea called over. Zhe gave her a thumbs up.
Lea wheeled one of those small surgical tables over and grabbed a pair of bandaging scissors from it. “Need visuals on your grafts.” You nodded, and closed your eyes as she started on the ones on your face. The bandaging coming off pinched and drew a grumble from your chest. “When was his meds refreshed?”
“About 8 hours ago,” you replied.
“Oh, you’re on the ball; that’s good!” she chirped. “We would like to document what your pain level is without the medication, so we’ll hold off on giving you your refresh until then.” You opened your eyes to give her a look, and she gave you an apologetic face. “We’re not monsters—once we get a baseline, if you deem it necessary, we’ll get you another round. From your file, it sounds like they’ve been doing so well you haven’t been in anypain, so it’ll be a good baseline for you to know too.”
You nodded, resignedly. That made sense.
Caleb was tapping away on the tablet in his hands as Lea studied your face. “His left eye is discolored,” she spoke toward Caleb, looking between your eyes. “I’m assuming its the left that’s discolored, based on where the damage is. It’s amber instead of the same dark brown as his right.” She looked directly at you when she spoke next; “Do you have any vision issues? Blurriness, doubling vision, a lower light perception through that eye?”
You shook your head. It was the first you were hearing about this. “How bad is my face?” you asked smally.
“The grafts are coming along well! It’s going to have a rough texture once its healed, based on where the donor skin was harvested from, and it looks like you’re going to be missing a chunk of your beard, but the AT-5 surgeon did really well, all things considered.” Moving on from your face, she scrutinously studied your neck where your tattoo was, and gestured to it. “Does this, hurt?”
You shook your head. “That’s been scarred over for a while now.”
“It looks like it’s inflamed.”
You moved to touch it. The scar did feel raised, but beyond that, it didn’t react painfully at the touch. “Huh. It doesn’t hurt, but yeah, the scar feels a bit different.”
“Has anyone noticed that yet?” Lea asked.
You shook your head. “If they did, no one told me.”
Caleb notated that on his tablet. As Lea moved to cut the bandaging off your chest and left arm, you steeled yourself for pain.
“Breathe,” Lea said gently.
“I’m… worried about what happens when the nerve block wears off,” you said, trying to focus on breathing.
“That is one thing I caught from the few intact files we got for you,” Margie called from across the room. “Tell me more about that?” Zhe didn’t look away from the computer zhe was fighting with.
“Um. Well. The.. end of what’s left of my left arm is what hurts the most, and it’s unbearable pain when I don’t have the nerve block. My last med team had a theory, based on a discovery I made on the blood moon, that… The blood could have turned the skin into raw nerve cells, and that’s why the general pain meds aren’t touching
it.”
Margie turned zer attention from the computer to look at you, and Caleb looked up from his tablet. Margie, in a rolling chair zerself, pushed off the counter and rolled over to stop in front of you. Zhe looked at Lea, who had paused in removing your bandaging in surprise. “Keep going,” zhe demanded of her.
Lea nodded and did so, focusing on removing the bandaging from your left arm. You set your jaw in anticipation for pain, but the nerve block seemed to be intact at least for the moment. As the bandaging fell away, the three medics all leaned in to look at the damaged limb. You’d seen it in previous bandage changes, and it didn’t look any different now; the surgeon hadn’t opted to cut away the entirety of the mutated flesh, and it still had a tumorous and alien growthy look on the edges. You weren’t sure why the surgeon had made that choice, but figured it had something to do with how difficult it would’ve been to put a graft on that specific spot, and how much you’d already bled.
Margie began to notate to Caleb, who in turn tapped it onto his tablet. “Traumatic transhumeral amputation is capped by an unknown growth, appears similar to neurofibromas.” Margie reached for a pair of foreceps on the surgical table, and began to poke at the end of your arm. You couldn’t feel anything zhe did, for now at least,even as zhe began tugging at the growths. Zhe moved to grab a scalpel and cut a small section off, rolling away toward a microscope across the room with it secured.
“I don’t even see why this is still bandaged,” Lea said just above a mutter. “There’s no discharge on the bandaging, and the flesh looks odd but clean and… maybe? Not infected?”
“I, don’t know why this wasn’t all cut off,” you said. “I don’t have any of this on the other spots, I don’t think.”
“If this was enough to stop the bleeding, and the mutating, then the surgeon probably opted to leave it in tact as a stopgap until a touch up surgery can to go through and fix it after your other wound locations were healed,” Caleb spoke up. “That’s a lot of damage, and it’s hard for the body to heal all of what you have going on at once.”
Made sense, and mirrored your own theory.
“Maybe it was wrapped just for aesthetic… Because obviously the wrapping wasn’t to protect it, it’s not sensitive tissue, and if it hurts as much as it does even with the bandaging on, it’s not pain management,” Lea continued her thought train, musing aloud.
“It is condensed nerve tissue,” Margie declared, still looking into the microscope. “It’s the weirdest nerve tissue I’ve ever seen, though--no wonder it hurts. Yeah, you’re staying on nerve block until we can sort that out. ..Shit, it’s cancerous, that’s why it looks weird. It’s benign, as far as I can tell, but I see how it got to looking the way it does.”
You couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. “How do we sort that out?”
Margie looked up at you from zer study. “I need to get these files sorted first, and let Lea and Caleb finish your physical. Then we can talk about that.”
You nodded, and zhe rolled back over to the computer to keep fighting with it.
“Exposed nerve tissue, shit,” Caleb swore under his breath.
Lea finished removing the bandages on your chest. “Medium sized graft over the right collarbone, status is good. Doesn’t look like any of that tumorous growth was left here. Two stitched wound closures on the right deltoid region, no growth left here either.” She moved around to see your back. “Large graft over the right shoulder blade and onto the spine, status is good. No growth here. Several instances of stitched wound closures on the left shoulder blade. Large patches of bruising along the entirety of the back, all in various stages of healing.”
“How did you lose your arm?” Margie asked from across the room, not looking away from the computer zhe was fighting with.
Lea stopped, and looked to your face. You were quiet for several moments, trying to figure out how to describe it in a way that didn’t sound insane—it was the first time anyone had asked you that. “I… I’m not even sure. I…” You took a deep breath, both to steady yourself from the memory and to try and convince yourself it was real. “I got thrown against the side of the sub, and this, tumor-y growth shit was growing all along the walls. It, grew onto my hand, up my arm, and when I tried to free it,” you shrugged, shaking your head slowly, not knowing how else to describe it, “I… pulled away without my arm. It was still stuck to the sub. ...That was… that was when I knew I was a deadman. ..Somehow, I’m still here. It sounds insane, but. Everything about what happened down there was insane. I’m insane…”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” came Dr. Beckett’s voice from across the room, mirth in his tone.
The medic team chuckled at that, but you could only shake your head. “I can’t tell what was real, and what was a hallucination. There was an incident on the transport ship that blurred that line even harder—I hope Tanner put that in my file. Something is wrong about that moon, about me now that I was down there… If I’m not insane, then I’m actually cursed.”
“Well, if you’re insane, then Dr. Beckett’s got you covered. If you’re cursed, then hopefully we’ve got you covered,” Caleb said. You gave him what you hoped was a pleading look, you weren’t sure what exactly your face was doing. He stepped over and held out a fist to you--you hardly recognized the ancient gesture; it was something the kids on Eden hardly remembered from their lives before the Quiet Rapture, and you hadn’t used it since your Brothers stopped using it when everyone had hit adulthood. You moved to tap his fist with yours. “We’re gonna get you fixed up.”
You nodded to him quietly.
Lea moved around to your front to keep looking for things to note. Spotting your right arm bandaged, she moved to take up the scissors again, and began carefully removing the bandaging. “Medium sized graft on the right interior forearm, status is good, no growth left here either. Extensive spiderwebbing of glued cuts?” she asked more than stated, “All along the lower forearm, wrist, and hand, both ventral and dorsal.”
“I, I think that’s more removed growth… It looks like the stuff that grabbed my arm, but, I was able to free my right arm… Just, not my left,” you said quietly.
She nodded, and looked to Caleb to note that. “That makes a lot of sense. How stiff is that hand?”
“Pretty stiff, but, not unusable,” you replied.
She nodded. “How’s the sensation?”
“Uh, alright. The mismatched sides of the wounds have made it difficult to feel things correctly, but, I think once everything’s totally healed it’ll be fine.”
She nodded more, then gestured for you to sit back further on the exam chair; you did, and she moved to examine the graft donation sites on your thighs. “Donation sites are looking good, clean edges and the scabs are intact.” She looked pointedly to you. “I’m not sure if anyone told you, but it’s imperative you do not pick, scratch, peel off, or otherwise damage the scabs here, understand? It’s going to itch like hell itself, but that means it’s healing. Your grafts are going to start itching soon too, but not as badly as the donation sites. These scabs will fall off in time, don’t “help” them--got it?”
You nodded affirmatively.
As Lea moved to inspect several large bruises on your legs, Margie cried, “Aha! Finally, got the files. I’m loading them up into the medhub for comparison.”
“Excellent. Lea’s almost done with the visual inspection, and we’ll move on to the scans soon,” Caleb said.
“Severe bruising on the right lateral thigh looks to be healing nicely. Moderate bruising on left shin is nearly healed.” She moved to look you over once more for anything else of note. “Anything I missed?” she asked you.
“You tell me,” you replied.
She gave you a wry smile. “Let’s get you into the scanner then.”
Caleb moved to put his tablet over by Margie, and then to engage one of the machines along the opposite wall. Lea gestured for you to follow her, and you did so dutifully, hopping down from the exam chair and stepping over to where Lea stopped. From afar, it looked like a giant square along the wall, but as one end of it opened up to release a bed, the inside looked more like a tube.
Your brow furrowed a bit; you’d never had anything worse than a stab wound, or the skinned knees, and you weren’t sure what to expect with this machine.
Lea caught your apprehension, and asked, “Knowing what you went through recently, have you developed claustrophobia?”
You shook your head slowly, uncertainly. “Uh.. I’m.. not sure.”
“For the scan, you’ll need to be enclosed in the machine for about a half hour, lying as still as possible. Think you can manage that?” Caleb asked.
You looked to him, then to Lea. With a steadying in-breath, you sighed; “I can try. Y—you said it can be paused at any time, right?”
“The scan needs to go for the full time, or it’ll need to be restarted to get a clean image. Why don’t we see how you do just being enclosed, and if you’re good, I can run the full-body x-ray. From there, we can see how you’re doing and if we can proceed with the scan,” he offered.
You nodded, and moved to sit on the bed. What was one more tight tube? At least this one was cozy, and not surrounded by blood—or filling with it. Swinging your legs up, Lea moved to help you settle into the right spot, and she instructed you to keep your arm still at your side. Being in position, Caleb gave you a warning, then engaged the machine to slide you inside. It was pitch black once it closed, and there were quiet, indistinguishable machine whirring sounds coming from above you in it’s idle state. You closed your eyes, and that seemed to help.
“How’re you feeling, Simon?” came Caleb’s voice, muffled by the layers of metal.
“Okay, so far,” you said, hopefully loud enough for him to hear. It was deafening to you, though.
“I’m gonna take the x-ray, then,” he said.
The machine whirred up a dozen decibels, then the sound died down again.
“That’s done. How’re you feeling?”
“That was it?”
“Yep, the scan won’t be much louder than that, either, but it’ll go for about a half an hour.”
You thought about it for several moments. “Go for it.”
“Gotcha; remember, you gotta stay really still for this one, so get comfortable. Let me know if you need to get out.”
You shifted a bit to relieve some tension on your back graft as the machine whirred up again. It didn’t get any louder than it previously had, but this time, it sounded like the gears inside were moving all around you, and slowly moving from your head down to your feet. It was a bit disconcerting, but keeping your eyes closed and listening to the machine’s progress was lulling. In fact, it was really hard not to fall asleep; you realized as you began to doze that you probably shouldn’t fall asleep, just in case you had a nightmare.
When the whirring of the machine had reached down around your hips, the medics’ voices drifted in from outside the machine. They were extremely muddled due to the sound of the machine and the mass between you, but it sounded like hushed excited tones. What the fuck did they find inside you? That’s what they were fawning over, right? A light dread crept into your consciousness; what did they find…? You took inventory of yourself as you listened to the whirring; nothing hurt, at the moment. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, not even so much as a tickle. Could something insidious really be hiding in your body; how? Though, that made you think of how you didn’t even realize that your face had gotten fucked up until you woke up with bandaging on it. When did that happen, even?
Retrieving the black box, being submerged in the blood… That didn’t make sense either, though. You didn’t have any weird growths anywhere else on you, so why your—oh right. You’d taken a bash to the cheek, and the drip on your forehead. Did that blood affect you mostly where you already had open wounds? That would make sense… But then, why your eye? And, you hadn’t even noticed anything wrong with your left eye either. You sighed, then remembered you needed to keep still.
Somehow, you managed to not fall asleep, trying your best to listen to the progress of the scan as the machine followed along your body. It made you antsy as it got to your feet, and soon thereafter, the machine whirred quickly back to it’s starting position and then wound down.
“You okay in there?” Caleb asked as the bed seemed to unlock from it’s position, then began to slide you back out.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” you said, then instantly regretted your words as the light of the room hit your eyes. You winced them shut with a groan, then reached for your forehead where you pulled your graft at the reaction. “Ow, fuck.”
“Shit, sorry, forgot to warn you,” Caleb said with an apologetic tone.
A hand grabbed yours before you could touch your forehead; “No, don’t mess with your graft. Let me see it,” came Lea’s voice from the brightness behind your eyelids. She at least let you have your hand back, and you moved it to shade your eyes from the room’s brightness. “I don’t think you dismounted the graft’s inosculation, at least.”
“Is that good?” you grumbled, not recognizing the word.
“Yes, that means you haven’t broken the new blood vessels forming between the graft and the muscle underneath.”
“Huh. That does sound good,” you replied, daring to open your eyes against the light, though not without your hand for a shield still.
“You’re in the healing stage where it’s still establishing itself, so the new vasculature is delicate. One wrong move and you can still slip the whole graft out of place, and it dies.”
“That’s good to know. What got everyone so excited out here, by the way?” you asked, still wincing, trying to get your eyes to adjust to the light level.
“We’re waiting for the scan to process so we can share that with you in better detail, but the x-ray had some interesting anomalies on it,” Margie said from where zhe was sitting at the computer.
“Interesting how,” you asked, moving to sit up, satisfied with how much your eyes had adjusted to the light.
“When the scan is processed, we can tell you more,” Caleb reinforced.
“Okay, but, good? Bad? I have 7 days to live?”
“Comparing this to the scan that the transport team got of you, likely you’re fine, but nothing that any of us have ever seen anything like,” Margie replied, clicking around on the computer.
You noticed Lea was holding your clothes, and she offered the bundle to you before you could think about getting up. You took it with a “thank you”, and figured if she was offering it to you, you were allowed to get dressed again, so you did so, carefully. She stood by, at the ready to help, but you were grateful she didn’t automatically move to do so. You looked to her when you realized something; “Do, I need new bandages?”
She shook her head. “Your graft sites are coming along nicely, and at this point other than you being delicate with your movements, they shouldn’t need to be protected with bandaging, or need any drainage sopped up.”
You nodded at that, and continued to dress, but paused once you had your boots on, and sighed, looking up to Lea for help. “Could you, please?”
She looked dumbly between your face and your boots for several seconds until she caught a glimpse of your one hand, then your malformed stump, and realized. “Oh, shit, of course!” She sat on her heels in front of you and laced your boots for you. “I’ll send Joseph a message and see if vie can’t source some boots that you can fasten yourself for you—or, have these altered. Honestly, I’m surprised none of us thought of this sooner…”
You caught Caleb looking over at what was going on. “..Oh,right. We only have a couple folks that come through with upper limb issues, so it’s, really easy to forget. Sorry, Simon.”
You nodded an acquittal at him, and gave Lea a “thank you”. “I, honestly don’t know how I’d be able to put them on if I didn’t have help… I was also given a razor, and now hearing that my beard is going to look like shit, I’m going to have to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to shave one-handed…”
“Fuck, that does suck,” Caleb spat in empathy.
Lea stared at your boots, and you could see the gears turning in her head. She didn’t seem to get anywhere, so she pulled out her little tablet from her pocket and started tapping around on it. “Yeah, I’m. I’m messaging Joseph right now. That’s something that vie’ll be more knowledgeable about.”
Seeing her PII, you reflexively checked for your own—it was still in the pocket you’d put it in. You sighed. A thought came to your mind, and you watched Lea as she typed away. When she seemed done, you asked, “I.. haven’t had it explained to me yet… Who is Joseph? In the COI, I mean. I, have the impression vie’re on the council but. That, just anyone can message vir, that, vie’re going on trips to retrieve a…” you caught yourself before you could say something incriminating, “..Realization Completionist?”
“Anyone can message anyone on the council.” Caleb beat Lea to answering. “The council is the reigning body of the Consolidation, sure, but they’re also the peoples’ representatives. The council doesn’t make a decision without the whole council, and a councilor doesn’t make decisions about a decision until they’ve heard from their people. Their offices are open to the public as well, and the councilors walk amongst the people of the Consolidation with full trust, because they know that the people trust in them.”
You watched him as he continued to mess around with the scanner’s interface, digesting what he said. It was so different here...
Suddenly, the wall between the scanning machine and where Margie sat fighting with the computer lit up.
Margie and Caleb both looked at it simultaneously, and that prompted Lea to wander over to look as well. Wanting to see what all the fuss
was about, you carefully stood and wandered after Lea.
What lit up the wall was two images, projected there side by side. On the left was obviously an x-ray. To you, nothing seemed out of the ordinary—but you also didn’t know what you were looking for. On the right was some sort of soft tissue scan, and the way it projected, it was constantly rotating through multiple layers. That was where shit got weird, and it was obvious even to you. All three medics had their eyes laser-focused on the soft tissue scan, and Caleb barely remembered to pull up his tablet to start notation before both Lea and Margie started dictating to him.
“Starting from the head down,” Margie declared. “Multiple concussions including major injury to the frontal lobe, right temporal, and the visual cortex.”
“Soft tissue anomaly of the left side face, looks like the type of anomalous growth as on the left arm remnant, left over from where the surgeon had already excised the surface section. I’m deeming this type of anomaly as ‘Anomaly A’ for brevity of the document,” Lea dictated.
“Left eye has a structural anomaly, but it’s extremely hard to pick out; probably why the eye still functions fine. Can’t tell if it’s Anomaly A.”
“Sinuses have structural anomalies A, but the extent is located mostly in the nasal cavity.”
“Soft tissue of the left cheek has structural anomalies A remnants around where the surgeon excised previously.”
“Tongue has structural anomalies A as well, but the extent is minimal.”
“Scar tissue on the neck is anomalous, but not Anomaly A. I want a biopsy.”
“Anomaly A structures present down the length of the trachea, but the anomalies don’t seem to be impeding usage as evidenced by the scan picking up functionality.”
“Right lung has anomalous A structures, but also doesn’t seem to be impeding function.”
“Guys, slow down,” Caleb grumbled in frustration. You weren’t sure that they heard him.
“Left lung has some bruising, as well as structural anomalies A.”
“The left chest cavity has structural anomalies A on ribs 3-6.”
“Stomach has structural anomalies A in several locations.”
“Liver is showing extensive anomalous A growth, possibly from filtering the malignant blood. Note to run a liver function test.”
“No other visible torso damage, moving on to extremities; traumatic transhumeral amputation of the left arm has extensive anomalous A growths at the terminal end, encasing both the soft tissue and bone. That’s going to be a doozy to fix…”
“Soft tissue around the right collarbone has anomalous A remnants around where the surgeon excised previously.”
“Soft tissue around the right trapezius and the right lateral spine has anomalous A remnants around where the surgeon excised previously.”
“Soft tissue on the right deltoid has anomalous A remnants around where the surgeon excised previously.”
“Soft tissue of the interior right forearm has anomalous A remnants around where the surgeon excised previously.”
“Soft tissue of the right lateral thigh muscle has structural anomalies A.”
“Soft tissue of the left anterior shin musculature has structural anomalies A.”
“Something doesn’t seem right,” Margie eventually concluded as zhe and Lea ran out of immediately noticeable issues.
Your head was spinning, and the blood had left your face trying to process everything you had wrong with you around when Caleb tried to get them to slow down. “Wh—what doesn’t seem right?”
Lea shook her head, “I agree but.. I can’t quite pick it out.”
“You’re this injured, with this extent of anomalous growths, but you’re still standing here with us,” Margie looked to you.
Lea did too, then back to the scan. “…I see it now.” She pointed to where your right thigh was on the scan. “You have an obvious bruise here, enough of one that this should be showing muscle tearing at the very least. In fact, I don’t see any soft tissue damage, just the anomalous tissue.”
Margie turned to look to you, and seemingly a light bulb went on in zer head. “..Hold on.” Zhe turned back to the computer that zhe had been fighting with and started pulling up files on it. “I saw a heavily redacted file pop up while I was trying to get them in order—here it is.”
Zhe sent it to the projector, and it blew up large enough for someone on the other side of the room to read it. It was heavily redacted, but the sections left open for viewing mentioned the properties of the blood from the ocean, including how when the blood came into contact with skin, it mutated the cells first by turning the contacted tissue into stem cells, then rewrote it’s DNA to be a different type of cell.
All three medics looked to you, and you looked between the three of them, confused. “What?”
“The anomalous tissue left in you isn’t just benign tumors, it’s your own local cells that turned into stem cells, that turned into cancerous cells.” Margie stressed.
You shook your head and shrugged. “I don’t, know what any of that means...”
“Stem cells are blank cells, what turn into other types of cells. The blood mutated you by erasing what the affected cells originally were, then turned them into something else,” Lea helped translate.
“It’s why we’re seeing a concentration of the anomalous A structures around wounds and mucosal membranes; it targeted already damaged and structurally weaker cells, easy for it to mutate,” Margie continued.
If you had any blood left in your face, it was gone. “What… does that mean for me?”
“We’re not sure yet. The growths are benign, meaning they won’t continue to corrupt other cells around them, and judging by the scan, your muscles and bones where the anomalous A structures are is functioning like normal cells. Hell, they might just be functioning like normal cells because they are those cells, but, reorganized,” Margie replied.
Lea was now studying the x-ray. She tapped the left side ribs, and when she did, you noticed they looked quite different from the right ones. “You must have had broken ribs, 3-6,” she tapped them, each of them structurally odd versus the ones on the right. “When you had the ocean blood enter your bloodstream in some way, it must have
targeted the damage, and “fixed” it. That also is evidenced by the fact we’re not finding any soft tissue damage.”
It was too much to process, and was making your head swim. You moved to go sit back on the exam chair, not sure how long your balance was going to hold. Lea had followed you to make sure you were okay—you didn’t even notice until you had sat back down. You gave her an appeasing nod and a hand gesture, trying to brush her off—really, you just needed to sit, and process.
Margie and Caleb were continuing to pour over the soft tissue scan, often looking back to the x-ray to cross reference. Margie had tapped a couple times on the computer, and was now manually controlling the scan’s animation, making the image look like it was slicing through you with light.
“Does anything hurt, right now? Other than the graft you pulled,” Lea asked.
You could only shake your head. “No the, meds are still working well. When I, uh, heard you talking out here, real excitedly, I tried to. Take inventory of myself and, honestly, I don’t feel any different than I did before I went into that sub. I—I dunno if that’s the meds or the… mutations just. Can’t be felt, or.. I
dunno.”
Lea moved to take her little tablet out of her pocket and inspected it. “You said you had taken your meds about 8 hours ago, about an hour ago. How long have those been lasting for you?”
“About 10. The nerve block, about 8, and, that’s the one I’m most worried about.”
She nodded, “Of course, of course. How willing are you to come off the nerve block, so we can get a baseline pain level for it?”
You took a deep, apprehensive breath. “I… I’ll do it, but—”
“I’ll get a syringe ready right now so once you tell us you can’t handle it anymore, it’ll be ready to go.”
You took a shakier breath. “Okay,” you said, just above a whisper.
“I can make it up, Lea,” Margie called over, rolling zer chair away from the wall where zhe’d been studying the projection.
“Margie’s real good at it, and we’ve got the good stuff too,” Lea said with mirth. She looked you up and down, and seemed as though she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to ask her next question. “Up to one more test? I know you just had a lot of really bad news dumped on you, but, I need to know if you’re going to need to stay with us. I need to know how much walking you can do, since, as you saw coming in, we’re not a small station.”
“Sure, how, do we do that?” you asked, trying to even out your breathing and get your body back in order to do the best you could.
“Best way is just to take a walk. I can bring the chair with us, for when you need it, and I’ll show you around the station a bit. How’s that sound?”
You nodded, “Sure, sounds good.”
“Have you tried walking and talking? I know Tanner’s not the most gossipy of sorts,” she teased.
You cracked a smile. “Not, much.”
“I can talk at you then, don’t feel the need to respond if you’re trying to focus on your breathing, then.”
In a sudden clamor of steel wheels on the bulkhead, Margie rolled over in zer chair, coming to a stop right at Lea’s side. Zhe offered up a capped syringe to her. “Just in case the nerve block wears off early, or y’all walk longer than an hour or so.”
Lea took it and stashed it in one of her pockets. “Perfect, thank you Margie.”
Margie looked to you. “I’m going to keep studying your scan, and that biopsy of the anomalous tissue I took, and compare them to the documents we just got. I have theories, and I want to make hypotheses before we make any plans of action. Right now, things sound scary, I know. I think you’re fine. We just gotta figure out how fine you are, ‘kay?”
You nodded.
“You’ve given us a good puzzle. It’s been a while since we had one of these, so you’ve got our full attention,” zhe gave you a wry smile. “I’ll keep you updated with our findings.” With a well-executed kick off the exam chair’s base, Margie rolled away, back to the computer zhe’d been fighting with.
Lea nodded her head toward the door, gesturing for you to follow her. She paused and looked across the room as you stood; “Dr. Beckett, want to join us?”
You’d almost forgotten he was here; you watched as he stood and strode up to you; “The more the merrier, hm?” he stated.
Lea moved to head toward the door that you came through, and you dutifully followed her, Dr. Beckett following you. She walked backward down the hall again, keeping an eye on your movements, but didn’t do so the whole way—eventually, she turned the right way around and trusted that you were walking just fine. As she led you back to the tiny lobby, she grabbed the chair she’d stashed earlier, and moved to push it in front of her.
Heading out of the complex’s sliding door, she fell in step with you, walking at your pace. She led you down the same corridor that you had arrived through, and this time, you tried to focus on looking at your surroundings. The ceiling of the ring was a good several stories above, which made the complexes and buildings that made up
the walls of the maze feel very short. The station was relatively bright, something that once you noticed it, surprised you—Eden was quite dark, lit only along the halls; but then again, Eden wasn’t built in rings like this station was. It was obvious upon thinking about it that Eden was built to let in starlight—it was a colony station. This station seemed to be built to be a trading hub, hence it’s size and more utilitarian build.
“You look like everything is all new to you,” Lea commented.
“It is… I’ve.. been on other stations before, but… Eden is built so differently from the other stations I’ve been on. I never actually noticed how different before,” you said, paying attention to how you were breathing as you spoke and walked.
She looked up to try and see what you were looking at. “How so?”
“It’s.. built in layers, levels. Most walls of the station are glass. Since the Quiet Rapture, it’s been so dark, since it was meant to let in sunlight. Here, it’s bright, because the walls weren’t made to do that.”
“Huh,” she gave a contemplative sound, “I never thought of that.”
Before you knew it, you had wandered up to the central elevator. As you stopped and studied it, Lea spoke up; “How are you feeling, walking so far?”
You nodded, “Doing okay.”
“Any pain, weakness, shortness of breath?”
“Breathing, but.. I think I’ll be okay.”
“Why don’t we go to the Commons; there’s plenty of places to sit down there, and we can introduce you to how the Consolidation operates its food service,” Dr. Beckett spoke up from behind you.
You and Lea both moved to look to him, your face questioning as she replied, “That’s a great idea, doctor, let’s do that!” You watched as she moved to tap the call button—it slid open immediately.
“You’re not the first Edenite that I’ve helped, son,” Dr. Beckett said gently as you stepped into the elevator as a group. “I know a bit about what it’s like, thanks to the folks that came before you, ones much like you—rougher around the edges, than you, though.”
Son… You set your jaw at hearing yourself be called that again, but by a much gentler voice. You chewed on that as you watched Lea reach for the control panel to the elevator. You noticed she tapped a button on a panel that was labeled Habitation; there was a different panel labeled Service, and it was pretty easy to figure that the elevator would spit you out on either a sub floor or a different section of maze based on which button you pushed.
As the elevator moved, a thought came to you, and you moved quickly to pop the collar on your jumpsuit, and zipped the zipper up as far as it’d come. Lea caught the movement, and you could see her look at you out of the corner of your eye. You could barely hear Dr. Beckett tapping on his tablet behind you. Without much of a warning, Lea’s hand was placed on your right shoulder. You looked at her questioningly as the elevator came to a stop.
“You didn’t catch yourself working your shoulder, did you? Are the meds starting to wear off?” She pointed out.
You blinked blankly at her. Turning your attention to your shoulder, it was indeed beginning to pinch. “Ah, shit, I didn’t even realize... I might’ve pulled my back graft…”
She nodded. “You can do a little bit of pulling, but I need you to be cognizant of it right now, because the more you begin to hurt, the more your muscles are going to want to protest or work out the pain,” she warned as the elevator door slid open once more.
You nodded in affirmation and moved to stick your hand in your pocket—it slid in comfortably along side your little tablet, and you gripped it for something to keep your attention on.
Lea stepped out, and started to lead the way. You hadn’t been in this sector of the first ring before, and the space was open and bright. Just like the offices ring, this ring was several stories tall, and was lit from far over head by warm colored lights. As you walked in further, the din of chatter became audible.
Rounding a corner, the sight made you stop and stare. The open space widened out into a huge vaulted area, occupied with many tables and chairs, even several seating arrangements of sofas facing each other. There were a few dozen people milling about, sitting and chatting or eating, or standing near the edges of the area. The walls of the area had alcoves just like that which Joseph had described to you, with a single person behind a half wall talking with someone on the outside, or working on various tasks. The smell of food cooking was enrapturing, and it finally clicked in your head what had been described to you.
“What the fuck,” you breathed just above a mutter.
Lea had turned to look to Dr. Beckett. “He’s, really never seen a commons?”
“No, we--we didn’t have anything like this,” you said, still looking around a bit awestruck.
“It’s something all the Eden folks I’ve worked with have been perplexed at,” Dr Beckett confirmed.
“No, we. We had scheduled meals and meal times, and. Folks from different clans had their own living spaces. You’re saying anyone can come and just sit here, at any time?” you looked to them both.
“For the most part. If you’re scheduled to be working somewhere, then you’re expected to be doing your work there, but some work can be completed while spending time in the Commons, and if you’re taking your official rest period, you can spend as much of that time here as you want.” Dr. Beckett explained.
“It’s a good place to come and get the latest gossip, too,” Lea added. She gestured for you to follow her, and she began walking into the area—you followed dutifully.
She led you on a circuit around the outer edge of the seating area, which gave you time to amble past the stalls to get a decent look at them. There was half a dozen different ones that were dedicated to food, each one with pictures that displayed different preparations of the ingredients they offered. Each one smelled divine, and that was perplexing. Nothing here was familiar at all, and just trying to comprehend it was making your head hurt.
What kind of hydroponics did the COI have, that Eden didn’t? You’d always known Eden to be the station with the best hydroponics of the stations left after the Quiet Rapture, so to know that there was different food here was baffling.
As your head swirled with the idea, Lea’s little tablet started to make noise, and she pulled it out of her pocket. She held it up to her ear and then spoke toward it; “Joseph, magister, what can I do for you?” She paused as though she were listening to a comms unit. “We’re still running our tests; we’re currently in the Commons
testing his ambulation.” She paused, then pulled the little machine from her face, tapped on it’s screen, and held it toward you.
Before you could take it, Joseph’s voice came out of it; “Simon, I’m so sorry, it completely slipped my mind your limb deficiency when I was putting together your personal effects. That is extremely unprofessional of me, and I’m working to remedy that as we speak. Lea says you’re currently in the Commons; could you stop by Morrison’s stall and introduce yourself? Hy is the one I’m commissioning to get you more accessible gear, and if hy can see your abilities for hymnself, then it’ll give hymn a better idea of what the situation is.”
“Uh, of course, magister,” you said aloud, though, you weren’t sure if vie could hear you.
“Excellent—do keep me up apprised to the situation! And if you run into any other issues with your gear and hand count limitations, do let me know immediately,” vie replied. “Lea, privately, please.”
She tapped on her little tablet, then put it back to her ear. As she did so, she began to walk in the same direction she had been traveling, prompting you to follow her. “Of course, magister. ..Of course, magister. ...Yes, magister. Will do, magister.” She moved to slide her little tablet back into her pocket. She turned to look to you. “How are you doing walking? We’ve been going at a pretty slow pace, but I want to make sure you’ll be able to stand and speak with Morrison; hy can be a bit of a talker,” she said with
mirth.
You nodded. Things were starting to hurt, but standing wasn’t too bad. “I, should be okay… The, meds are wearing off, but. It’s not too bad right now.”
She nodded. “If you’re comfortable, I’m going to push your limits. Think you’ll be good to continue if you get to sit and rest a bit after speaking with Morrison, then head back to the medical center?”
You nodded. She nodded in return and walked over to one of the occupied stalls nearby. A banner above the alcove looked to be painted to say, “Morrison’s Tailorship: Fibercraft, Alterations, and Garment Recycling.”
A tall, scruffy, older fellow within the alcove was speaking animatedly to someone already, but gave your group an acknowledgment when Lea approached. Hy did a double take, however upon glancing you, and waved you over spiritedly. The patron already at the stall looked over as you approached, and seeing Morrison’s reaction to your presence, gave hymn a “I won’t keep you”, and they parted with a polite wave. You stepped up, a bit overwhelmed by the excited reaction.
“Let me guess, you must be Simon,” Morrison spoke, hys voice obviously reigned in to a polite volume from what sounded like could be the level of a ship’s engine.
Hy offered a hand to you from across hys counter, and you took it; hys hand shake was as spirited as the rest of hys movements. “That’s me, yeah,” you replied.
“We don’t get many folk with upper limb issues, so Joseph called me in a muddle about helpin’ you out—said you can’t tie your boots. Easy fix, easy fix. Lemme get a good look at ya—“ As he looked you over, you gave Lea an uncertain look. Was hy always like this? She gave you a smile and nodded. “Left arm gone;
which is your dominant hand?”
“Uh, my right, thankfully.”
“Good good! Easiest fix for boots for you is gonna be zippers on the in-side. Let me check real quick if I have a pair of zippers that strong,” hy said before turning to wander further into hys stall. You got a good look into his stall while hy dug around; there was more fabric present in overflowing boxes and crates than you’d ever
seen in one place. A lot of it looked like scraps, not enough to make a full garment out of, but you thought about how hys sign said “garment recycling”. Huh.
“Are, you the one that Joseph was talking about when vie said, something about getting, chosen clothing?” You asked, almost shyly.
“Sure am! Bring me supplies, bring me fabric, trade me your time--shit, get me a doughnut from down the way and I’ll do what I can to fix you up with what you’re looking for,” hy said as hy continued to dig through hys supplies. What was a doughnut? “Hell. If you’d like, I can even trim and stitch up your jumpsuits’ arm
for ya, only charge would be I get to keep the off-cuts--I’m always in need of official canvas for patches.”
That made you glance at your left arm. Ianthe had pinned up the loose fabric so it wasn’t flailing about unwieldily, and it did seem like a waste. Shit, your other one was in the medical center still. “I’ll have to take you up on that.”
“Good man, good man,” hy said as hy studied a zipper in hys hand. Hy compared it to another one in hys hand, then wandered back up to the counter, seemingly satisfied with hys selection. “What size boot you wear; I can work on them today and have you pick ’em up tomorrow.” You gave hymn your measurements with a curious look. Hy nodded, and said: “I got plenty of boots back here, and the work is on Joseph’s dime. You’ll just need to trade me the boots you got when you come up for your new ones. Sounds good?”
You nodded. “Thank you, seraph,” you said, and hy offered you hys hand again.
“Come back any time. Joseph said any alterations for making things able for you to do is on vir,” hy said as you shook hys hand.
“Good to know. Thanks again,” you gave hymn a polite wave and moved to rejoin Lea and Dr. Beckett.
“How’re you doing?” Lea asked.
You took inventory; you hadn’t realized that Morrison’s high energy had worn you down so much, and hy had kept your attention so well that you hadn’t registered how sore you’d become. “Sore,” you said, definitely feeling like that was the right word. Your body ached, your grafts itched, but thankfully, the nerve block hadn’t
worn off yet.
“Do you need to sit down, or do you think you can make it back to the medical center?”
You thought about it for a second. Your right thigh was starting to complain, and sitting sounded like a really good idea, but you also weren’t sure if you could get back up if you sat down. You also registered that your breathing had become a bit labored; that left lung felt stiff, and the bruising the medics had mentioned was
pressing against your ribs with each breath. “Let’s… let’s head back. I’m… If I need to sit, I’ll let you know.” \
Lea nodded and moved to keep moving the way you’d been heading. Rounding back to where you’d come in, the short hallway back to the elevator brought with it an agonizingly slow wait for it to arrive, unlike the last couple times you’d taken it today.
Lea checked her little tablet, muttering something about wondering if a shipment had arrived and was occupying the elevator, when the stabbing pain hit your left arm. You were able to bite back a reaction to the first couple pins and needles, but Lea seemed to catch onto your distress by the time the pain had begun to hit fully. “What’s the pain at,” she asked objectively as she stepped away from the chair she’d been accompanying the entire time, and to your front, where she pulled down the zipper on your jumpsuit to about your sternum, and pulled back the fabric so she could get a clean shot at the nerve where medics had put the blocker before.
“Fuck,” was all you could get from between your gritted teeth.
You hardly registered that she’d had taken the syringe Margie gave her out of her pocket, pulled the cap off with her teeth, and had stuck you, over the pain. The white hot searing pain retreated into pins and needles, then emptiness once more, and it wasn’t until then that you could think again. “Could—I, have.. the..” youtried to say between breaths in a small voice. Lea was quick to figure out what you wanted, and moved the chair over for you to sit in. You did so, gratefully, moving slowly. “Thank you,” you breathed, trying to catch your breath.
“Well, that’s a good enough baseline for that, I think!” she declared, moving to cap the syringe so she could put it back into her pocket and then pulled out her little tablet and began to tap around on it. “Definitely raw nerve tissue, definitely need to stay on the nerve block until that gets fixed.”
You slumped into the chair unceremoniously, mentally declaring that they’d have to dump you out of the chair to make you leave it. Everything hurt now, and even vocally replying to anything Lea felt like you didn’t have the energy to do, so you didn’t.
“Hopefully Margie and Caleb have found something that they can do about that, in the time we’ve been gone,” she said, making a relieved cheer when the elevator door finally opened. She had to wait though, as several occupants had to disembark before your group could get on.
Exhausted, you didn’t catch much of the trip back to the medical center, and it wasn’t until Lea roused you that you even registered that you were back in the exam room.
“He was doing so well, I really thought he was going to make it back to the center under his own power; if it hadn’t been for the nerve block wearing off, he would’ve,” Lea said to the other medics, who, as you came-to, you noticed were also right in front of you.
Margie was still sitting on zer chair and was studying you scrupulously. Caleb was typing on his tablet once again, taking notes. “How’re you feeling?” zhe asked.
It was hard to reply, and at first, all you gave zer was a sigh. “Tired,” you managed to slur out.
Zhe nodded. “I can see that. You were so full of energy until that blocker wore off; that has to be some awful pain, huh?”
It took all your focus to nod even a little.
“Want a little pick-me-up? Margie special,” zhe said wryly.
You weren’t sure if your face was making the questioning brow furrow you wanted it to.
Zhe chuckled. “You look like you need it. Hold tight.” Zhe rolled away with the tell-tale clatter of metal wheels on the bulkhead.
You managed to look to Lea and Caleb, and this time you think that your face had the questioning expression you were trying to make. Lea chuckled and said, “Zhe’s got a special concoction for an energy boost.”
“It’s gotten us through some long nights,” Caleb commented. “What do you think, Lea, think we’ll need to keep him over night?”
“If Margie’s pick-me-up doesn’t get him back up and running, probably. Otherwise, I actually think with a med refresh he’ll be just fine to sleep in his own bed tonight,” she replied, giving you a smile.
Margie rolled back shortly after holding a syringe, and moved to pinch some of the skin on your forearm. “It’ll go right under the skin and absorb pretty quickly. Little caffeine, little electrolytes, little bit of a secret sauce—” zhe gave you a stick that finally registered in your brain, being somewhere you usually didn’t get poked in. Zhe slowly pushed on the plunger, and it smarted and felt weird being injected; once zhe was done, zhe withdrew the needle and gave your arm a pat. “There. Couple minutes, and you’ll be running from one end of the ring to the other, promise.”
You managed to give zer a single breath of a chuckle as zhe rolled away again.
But, over the couple minutes she promised, you did seem to get some energy back. You shook the fog out of your head carefully, and winced gently as your brain began to process pain again. You moved your hand to scrub at the good side of your face—just now realizing that you’d been out and about without bandages on your graft. That had to have been a sight to see--a fucking ugly one.
“How’re you feeling?” Lea asked.
It was getting a little tiring being asked that. “Like a forklift hit me,” you grumbled.
She chuckled. “Well, you can make a sentence, so I’d say that’s another win for Margie’s pick-me-up.”
“Then backed up, and ran me over,” you continued.
You got a chuckle out of Caleb. “Joking is a good sign. What’s your pain level at now,” Lea asked between giggles.
You took a deep sigh as you took inventory. “It’s… hard to tell what’s pain, and what’s exhaustion, right now,” you said.
“Take your time. The cocktail may not have totally kicked in yet, too.”
You moved to sit up straighter in the chair, which definitely helped put some of the pain points into perspective. “It’s.. livable. Everything hurts but, if I didn’t get the general pain meds, I think I’d live.”
“What hurts the most?” Lea asked as Caleb tapped away on the tablet.
“The, uh, bruised lung. My thigh. The grafts,” you rattled off as you tried to focus on where the pain was.
“Anything internal? Any of the locations we found the anomalous growths?”
You tried hard to think about where those locations were, and focus on anything, but there just wasn’t anything bothering you. “Not that I can feel, no.”
“That’s promising,” Margie said as zhe rolled back over. “Little more awake now?”
“Yeah, thanks,” you gave zer a chuckle.
Margie sat forward with zer elbows on zer knees, then looked to Lea. “I want to keep him over night. I want to monitor his pain level, without general pain meds. Are you up to that?” zhe asked you.
You sighed. “Sure,” you said, defeatedly.
“It’s up to you if you want to,” zhe reinforced.
“I—I know. But, I also want to know if I can go without them.”
“This isn’t about how stoic you are, it’s about how bad your injuries are. Especially with this growth shit, we don’t know if that’s hurting you or not. Pain meds are easy to synthesize, so you’re not wasting resources, either. Understand?” Margie said with a serious tone, giving you an equally serious look.
Oh… You nodded meekly.
“The body heals better when it’s not in pain, so once we get a good base line, you’ll definitely get more, okay?”
You nodded. “Any… any decisions on what to do about my arm?”
Zhe sat upright in zer chair. “Not yet. I’m in between the two options that Tanner mentioned you two talked about in your file. I don’t want to go and cut the nerve to your arm in case that fucks up your ability to tell when there’s actual pain and damage in that limb, but I’m also uncertain that without removing more of the limb, that we’d be able to completely excise the raw nerve tissue. We can do that, but if we do, and that doesn’t fix it, then you’ll have to go through not just another surgery, but more down time, more nerve block, more pain… It’s a tough decision. What do you think?”
You sat with that for a while. “How.. much more of the limb? It’s, not doing anything being there like it is. Can’t I just say, take the whole thing off? Would that be enough?”
Zhe rolled that over in zer brain, you could see the gears turning. Zhe turned and rolled back over to the computer and the wall where the scan was projected earlier, and turned the projection back on. Zhe studied it for a good minute or two, then made a thinking motion with zer head. “Yeah. I can see if we took the rest of the remainder off, probably leaving the ball joint, that would remove any remaining scanable anomaly A tissue. But, I want to hazard, that because we don’t know much about the anomaly, that if we did that, we don’t know if it would truly end the pain. While I don’t see any more anomalous tissue that far up, the simple fact of we don’t know makes it tough to give a solid estimate.” Zhe turned to you to see your face.
You took a deep, steadying breath. “I’d say just, take the whole thing. It’s not doing me any good as it is, is it?”
Zhe nodded. “Let’s plan for that in a couple days, then. I want your baseline established so I know that you’d be good for another major surgery so soon. Probably best to keep you here until then, now that I think about it; wouldn’t have to teach you how to administer the nerve block yourself, or need you to come back every 9 hours to have it re-administered.”
You nodded quietly. That made sense, but being honest with yourself, you had really wanted to see what the apartment was all about, so that was disappointing to agree with.
Margie rolled back over in zer chair, and looked over at Caleb and Lea. “I can get him settled in to one of the rooms if you two wanted to head off to other tasks.”
Lea nodded. “You know where I’ll be if you need me,” she said to zer, then gave you a parting wave before heading off. “Rest easy!”
“I’ll keep looking over those scans, see if there isn’t anything we missed,” Caleb said to Margie. Zhe nodded to him as he walked of.
Zhe looked back to you, “You look like you would love a shower. With wounds like yours, you’ve probably endured a lot of cloth baths.”
You lit up at zer words. “I would kill for a shower.” Why the fuck did you say it like that? Zhe chuckled at your immediate reaction, though. The thought of showering also made you think of an important question; “Is there water rationing?”
Zhe gave a nod. “You get 10 minutes of shower water each day; there’s a timer in your apartment’s shower stall that lets you know how much you have left, so if you’re quick, you could even get two in. We have a laxer restriction here since folks who have to stay here tend to have more complex bathing needs, which, you definitely
do, so before we get you settled into your room for your stay, we can get you in the shower. Only, though,” zhe stopped you before you could get too excited, “if you promise to be super careful, and extremely delicate with those grafts. If you kill one of your grafts because I let you have a shower before you were completely ready, you’ll have to answer to me, got it?”
You nodded sheepishly.
Movement from the other side of the room caught your attention. Dr. Beckett stepped up from where he’d been sitting previously—you’d been so out of it when you got back, you didn’t even realize he’d returned to where he’d been before your walk.
“Before you run off to do so, let’s schedule to meet,” he said. Oh, right. You nodded, and he pulled up his tablet. “Sleepcycle starts at 2200, and the wake cycle at 800. I can stop by at 1000 to ensure that you’re awake and any waking duties by the medics have been finished.”
“That sounds good,” you looked to Margie, who also nodded.
“I do want to bring something to attention before I head out; your anti-psychotic medication.. Tanner put in your file that it is of the utmost priority that you get that medication. So that Margie knows as well, what is the reason for that level of importance?” Dr. Beckett watched you carefully.
“Did… did ze not put the.. what happened in my file?”
“Ze did. I don’t know if Margie read it; could you please go over the incident?”
It was painful to remember, and your hand moved almost by itself to your neck protectively. “My.. med refresh had slipped, and I had a nightmare, that became real.” You watched Margie, who was watching you intently. “It sounds insane, but, something followed me off that moon. It—it’s… It’s me, but… what I think was supposed to have happened to me. It’s… missing the same arm, it, has my tattoo, but it’s… covered in this growth shit, head to toe, and it’s mouth is split open with teeth, like the—” you paused, unsure if the med team should know about the fish monster, “the… thing that actually almost killed me down there. In that nightmare—my nightmares usually are exactly what happened in that sub… But, in that nightmare, the hallucination monster that’s been menacing me changed the nightmare, and
it was there instead of what almost killed me. It woke me, but, it was also in my room, choking me. It—it always disappears when someone other than me interacts with it, and the med team running in saved me.”
Margie looked to Dr. Beckett, who nodded to zer; zhe looked back at you. “How long has a dose of the anti-psychotic been working for you?”
“T—this happened after 12 hours since last dose,” you replied.
Zhe nodded. “Okay. We’ll have you on 10 hour doses.”
“I want to reinforce, doctor, that the anti-psychotic is not to stop him from self-harming,” Dr. Beckett said extremely pointedly. “He doesn’t have a history of it. With eye witness testimony, he’s telling the truth that something that was invisible to the eye-witnesses was physically effecting him from outside his control. We may not understand what that is, but with the evolving investigation into what was on that moon, we cannot rely on known conventions.”
Margie stared at him with a furrowed brow. “Doctor, how can a hallucination choke someone?”
“We don’t know. All we know, is that Simon has been through something we cannot understand, and we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that his hallucinations are quasi-physical. It is imperative that you accept that, especially now that one has threatened his life,” Dr. Becket said very seriously.
Zhe looked back at you, eyes trailing to your deformed arm. That seemed to put the pieces together in zer head for zer, and zhe nodded once in acknowledgment. “Yes, doctor,” zhe said. “Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Catch that, Caleb?”
Caleb appeared as though he was trying very hard to look like he not was paying attention to the conversation that was going on, but he turned at being called out to. “..Yes, doctor.”
“I’ll make sure Lea gets the note too,” Margie declared. Zhe turned to you. “I’m sorry that I assumed the worst of you; this is definitely outside of one’s normal expectations.”
You nodded, grateful for Dr. Beckett’s backing you. “When I’m on the anti-psychotic, I don’t see that thing. I’ve had a couple nightmares, but they were tame in comparison to that one.”
Margie nodded. “Good. Let’s hope that all of this will be solved with time, letting your brain heal from those concussions. Otherwise, you really are cursed.”
You cracked a smile at that. “I told you earlier…”
Dr. Beckett moved to offer you his hand to shake, and you did so. “We’ll get you fixed up, son. It’s the very least we can do.”
“Thank you, doctor,” you said, gratefully.
“1000 tomorrow, let me know if anything comes up,” he said with a gentle smile and moved to head out of the room.
“Let’s get you that shower then, then I can get you settled into a room here with us, then get you some food,” Margie said, nodding zer head toward the hall. “Think you can stand?”
Zer cocktail had continued to give you some energy, but you made an uncertain sound in reply to zer question. You tested your legs a bit before moving to push yourself up off the chair—it was uneasy first motion to get upright, but although Margie stood from zer chair for the first time since you’d seen zer in case you needed help, you managed to stay steady on your feet once up. After making sure you were stable, zhe moved to grab your satchel from where you’d set it earlier, and motioned for you to follow her.
