The gentle sound of humming pulled me out of sleep. I lay there, eyes shut and mind blank, just listening to that humming. It rose and fell, in a rhythmic cadence. Was that the tune of “Lady in the Garden”? Yes it was. I hadn’t heard that since my mother had sang it to me when I was young and refused to sleep.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a warm green room, very similar to the other hospital rooms I had been in over the course of my life. Most of them had been after I met Clint. I rolled my head to the side and I saw that the door was open and a nurse stood outside, going about her rounds, checking the clipboards outside the rooms. She was the one humming.
She looked up and glanced into my room. “Oh,” she exclaimed in a soft, measured tone, “you’re awake.” The nurse bustled inside, her hands fiddling with her stethoscope. She slipped it into her pocket as she reached my bedside. “How are you feeling?” she asked as she reached for my arm.
I was light headed, my stomach felt like it was trying to climb out of my throat, and my body was weaker than a wet noodle. “Fine,” I said. The nurse pressed her fingers to my wrist and counted my heart rate. “Hmm,” she said as she busied herself with a light. “Look here please,” she said, pointing over her ear. She spoke as she gave me a brief examination.
“You’ve survived a great ordeal, Mr. Jaku. The amount of Flow in your system, combined with the total body exhaustion and the Mountain’s Tear should have killed you. Nearly did, in fact. If you had arrived here any later, you would have died for sure.”
“Excuse me, what was that you said about the drugs in my system?” I asked her, concerned. What was Mountain’s Tear?
She reached down and lifted the clipboard at the end of my bed. She flipped through several pages before arriving at the one she wanted. “It says that when you were admitted, you had four times the lethal dose of Mountain’s Tear and twice the lethal dose of Flow. Either one of those-”
“What is Mountain’s Tear?” She looked at me. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what it was. With that much, your nerves would have been on fire. It would have seemed like you had molten…”
“…steel coursing through my veins,” I finished. She nodded. So that was what the Kantim had injected me with.
“Where did you come across it?” she asked. “It’s a very rare substance and-”
Her belt beeped and she glanced at her communicator. “I’ve got to run,” she said, looking up, “but I’ll send the doctor in as soon as I can.”
She walked through the door and disappeared. I rested my head back against the pillow and closed my eyes, savoring the feel of soft bedding and the fact that I was no longer subjected to the pain. I had almost dozed off when I was interrupted by loud footsteps that stopped by my bed. I opened my eyes and saw B’honnes standing by my bed. Why was it always him?
“Are you a masochist?” he asked me, looking sternly at me.
I furrowed my brow. “What? No!” I said, surprised he would ask that.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Every time I’ve seen you in a hospital bed, it’s because you reach your body’s limits and ask ‘Hey, what happens if I do more?’” He thrust his arm out, indicating my present state. “This is what happens. Not only do you push your body beyond the point where it should have shutdown, here I find you doped up on Flow and Mountain’s Tear. Where the hell did you even get Mountain’s Tear anyway?”
B’honnes seemed much more concerned than he should have been. He was my doctor, not my father. “Relax,” I said. “I’ll tell you where.” I told him how I met Wyena and I told him how she wanted my help. I skipped over the part where she bribed me with sex. I told him about the Arm and the crazy Kantim. I skimmed over the details of my rage, but I did tell him I took care of it.
“… and then I blacked out and ended up here.”
B’honnes looked at me with a strange look on his face. “You did all of that … for someone you didn’t even know?”
“Yes,” I said. B’honnes was a doctor, he should understand doing everything you could to help someone.
He shook his head. “You and Clint are something, you know that?” He pulled a piece of thin wood out of his pocket and twirled it between his fingers. “You take care of yourself,” he said as he turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” I asked. “You’re not going to check me over to make sure I’m alright?”
“The nurse already did that. And besides, if you’ve lived this long, you should be fine.”
I watched, stunned, as he walked through the door. I was still watching it when Clint walked it.
“You crazy bastard! You went and took on a whole gang without me?” Clint’s voice sounded equal parts surprised, disappointed, and proud. He made to give me a hug, looked at me in the hospital bed, apparently decided against it and patted me in the shoulder instead.
“How’d you find out?” I asked, surprised he already knew.
“How? It’s only the talk of the City. Some crazy guy went down into the Undercity and took out twenty mobsters by himself? Not to mention they say he was like a demon incarnate?” Clint’s eyes seemed misty. I had not seen that reaction from him before. I wondered what it meant.
“Demon? How do they know this?”
Clint smiled. “Apparently, some guy brought you back up here and then went to tell everyone about it.”
Hold on. “How long have I been here?” I asked. It had to have been a fairly long time for the news to spread that far.
“You’ve been here for three days.” Clint said. “I visited every day, but you were still unconscious. You’ve got to tell me what happened down there.”
“Three days? Wait, I missed the meeting with Noromak, didn’t I?”
Clint shrugged. “It’s no big deal. He understood completely. I’ll fill you in on what he had to say after you tell me what happened down in the Undercity.”
Clint looked happy and eager to hear about it so I told him. Not everything, but much more than B’honnes. I did tell him about Wyena, but I kept my rage to myself. I wasn’t sure what to make of it and I wasn’t going to tell anyone else until I could think it over myself. It was interesting watching Clint’s face change expressions as I elaborated on my ordeal.
When I told him about Wyena and me, he grinned. When I told him about the kidnapped girl, his face grew dark. I told him about the torture and how I got free. When I got to the part where found Wyena and her sister dead, I thought he might explode with rage. When I told him how I handled the Kantim, he nodded with approval. “Less than the bastard deserved,” he muttered. I finished with waking up here.
“Wow,” said Clint, leaning back in the chair he had grabbed half way through my story. “You’re all grown up now. I never thought I’d see the jahen I knew back in the old days would turn into such a warrior. I’m going to have to let you train some of the new people.”
“What new people?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about new people.
Clint leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. We’re about to wage war on the Empire. Let me explain,” he said, noticing my confused look. “Noromak has made a special unit. Their mission is to go into Swrun controlled space and cause as much damage as possible. The Empire’s eyes have gotten a little too close to Aldemere, and Noromak wants to distract them.”
Clint waved his hand. “That’s where we come in. We,” he motioned to himself and me, “and a few other fighters are going to deep into Empire territory and we’re going to start our own Rebellion. We’re going to gather some beings who feel the same way we do and make ‘em into an army. And we’re going to cause as much damage to the Empire infrastructure as we can. I’m talking ship yards, slave lots, military camps, supply depots, you name it, we’ll probably destroy it. But this is a very dangerous mission and only volunteers will go. You in?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Hell yes.”
“Good,” Clint said. “We leave tomorrow.”