Date Point: 13y2m AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Julian Etsicitty
The tumult of the day had taken a while to work its way through, beginning with the way the walking beefslabs of the SOR and their Whitecrest counterparts had made room by double- and triple-bunking with a bottomless fraternal cheer that said wonderful things about the relationship between humans and Gaoians.
Xiù, for her part, had practically burst into tears on being reunited with Regaari, and was now cuddled up with her old friend on the huge, reinforced steel-framed couch, and apparently feeling much better for it. Julian was finding it harder to cool down. He’d just about come to terms with the idea of his grampa’s place having been firebombed by a gang of rogue kids. That part he could have handled.
Finding out that those “rogue kids” actually had ties to a domestic terrorist group that had been on the FBI’s watchlist even before their escape pod had been cracked open? One that could put together a truck bomb and assault their other home? That was…
Well, that part he maybe could have handled as well. It was the fact that their whole schtick was supposed to be alien protection that he just couldn’t work past.
“I mean, fuck! What’re we supposed to do, just let Big Hotel wipe ‘em out? How much more protect-y do you wanna fuckin’ get?” he asked, rhetorically.
Most of the Lads, as they were apparently termed, had made themselves scarce in the early evening. The could still be heard in the sandy yard outside, playing a strange take on catch and beach volleyball. The humans did the throwing, the gaoians did the catching, and both tried to keep the ball moving over the line, somehow. The rules weren’t clear but it sure sounded like fun, and Julian might even have wanted to join in, in other circumstances.
Regaari seemed to be the voice of calm rationality and dignity, even if he was curled up on Xiù’s lap and letting her stroke that prominent white mohawk of his.
“Violence is a fact of major upheaval,” he observed. “It’s happened in every species, even the Vzk’tk, the Guvnurag…even the Corti, apparently. And while it’s abhorrent and Uncivilized—” that bit he said with naked contempt, which seemed to elicit a snort of approval from the Daar-beast in the corner, “—Maybe we should, ah, ‘count our blessings’ I believe?”
Daar harrumphed, “We have that exact same phrase, Cousin. Why emphasize it?”
“Our mythology is long dead, Daar. It doesn’t hold the same meaning anymore.”
Daar gave some gesture that maybe Xiù understood, and Regaari held his peace.
“I just expect better of people, you know?” Julian sighed, and leaned on the back of the couch behind Xiù, who raised a hand and held his over her shoulder.
Daar nodded amiably. “Yeah. I mean, we’ve had some pretty ugly things happen in our history. Look at me, I’m proof of it. But y’know what? It worked out in the end. The bad guys lose, the Civilized guys, they win in the end. You’ll see.”
“I never told you about Great Mother Tiritya, did I?” Xiù asked. Allison shook her head.
“She was…kind of a freedom fighter,” Xiù recalled. “There are a lot of history books just about her and her sisters. She basically founded the Clan of Females.”
“And Great Father Fyu, don’t forget,” Daar reminded her.
“Well, yes, but… the Females focus more on Tiritya,” Xiù told him with an apologetic expression. “And… well, the old male clans killed her in an ugly way.”
“They gave her the hundred-cut death,” said Daar. “That’s where they skin someone alive and then let them die of exposure in the cold. It can take days, sometimes.”
“Can?” Allison skewered him with the word.
“We have criminals, thugs and terrorists too,” Regaari opined. “Particularly heinous crimes get heinous sentences. Murdering a Female gets a one-day. Murdering a cub gets two. Harming any pregnant Mother in any way at all, even accidentally? Depends on the circumstances, most times it’s just an apology and a little embarrassment. But if the Judge-Father is appalled enough at the crime, the perpetrator could get the full three-day with his Clan disbanded, its Champion torn to pieces and his line destroyed, its Fathers executed, its Officers publicly castrated, and the rest of its Brotherhood ritually scar-marked and facing the ire of Stoneback.”
“Unless the Champion takes the punishment on himself,” added Daar. “He can take the ordeal along with the perp and spare his line and the rest of his Clan.”
“But sometimes they don’t.”
“Cowards.” Daar practically spat the word out. “Taking a quicker way out instead of saving their Clan! Leaves us a big mess to sort out.”
“…Us?” Julian asked warily.
“Yup, my Clan. Stoneback enforces Clan sentences when Straightshield asks us to,” grumbled Daar. “It’s one of our ancient duties and we take it very seriously.”
“…You guys really aren’t cuddly, are ya?” Allison commented, giving the Gaoians a look of newfound wariness. Julian couldn’t blame her.
“We can be, but…” Daar gave her an apologetic look. “Well, we don’t waste our affection where it ain’t appreciated, maybe.”
“I remember what happened to the Corti who abducted Ayma and her sisters,“ Xiù recalled. “And me.”
Allison frowned at her. “…I’m afraid to ask. What happened?”
“They let his victims get their revenge personally.” Xiù sniffed, uncomfortably. “And Mothers have sharp claws.”
“No offense, fellas, but I don’t like the sound of that,” Julian said. He’d always been opposed to the death penalty, and right now that was sounding downright humane next to what the Gaoians were describing.
“We are what we are, you are what you are,” Regaari made the odd ducking motion that was basically a Gaoian shrug, though he didn’t elaborate further.
There was a long, mutually awkward silence that was only broken by a sudden harsh ping from Allison’s pocket.
“FTLComm sync,” Regaari guessed. “It could be news from Earth.”
Allison couldn’t fish out her phone quickly enough. She tapped the fingerprint pad, read the update eagerly, and deflated badly as if somebody had skewered her.
“…Babe?” Julian asked.
“It’s from Clara,” she said, and sat up to read it. “Dad passed away at 21:30. Not doing great, but coping. Will see you on Cimbrean, soon. Stay safe.”
“God damn it.” Julian sagged, and Xiù gripped some of Regaari’s fur a little tighter for a moment.
“Yeah,” Allison agreed. She tossed her phone miserably onto the coffee table. “RIP, doc.”
Daar muttered something very low under his breath and made a sign with his paw. Regaari flicked his ear at him but said nothing and instead merely ducked his head in observance.
There was a minute of silence.
In fact, it was rather more than three melancholy minutes, and it was broken only by the heavy sounds of three enormous people coming up the stairs.
Three actually turned out to be four: Firth, Warhorse, Burgess and Kovač. It was genuinely good to see the new arrivals again, and from the looks of things they’d caught plenty of sun recently. Kovač had gone nicely bronzed, Arés was a deep roasted-chestnut brown, and Burgess had gone from Americano to Espresso. All three were practically radiating good health.
The rest of the HEAT followed shortly afterward and before Julian knew what was happening, the room was suddenly full to bursting with operators, all tangled up with each other across the couch and the floor into a huge, brotherly knot of affection. They even brought Hammond back in, which was a sign that the time for conversing about major secrets was over, for now.
The Gaoians in particular were visibly restraining themselves from fawning over Xiù, especially after Regaari aimed a Brotherly flex of his claws at them.
“Figured we’d watch a movie,” Firth explained, grabbing Julian like he was a teddy bear and dragging him into the pile. Julian decided against struggling or complaining—it would have been futile anyway, and it was oddly comforting to get some unfiltered male friendship for a change, even if it did make the girls aim mischievous grins at each other. “Anyone got any requests or whatever?”
“Planet Earth III?” Daar suggested, perking up.
“Dude, you always wanna see nature documentaries. Can we change it up?”
“I can’t help it, that Attenborough man has a soothing voice!”
“No arguing that, but I think our guests should pick,” Burgess told him.
Daar duck-nodded agreeably.
“We’re huge Disney nerds,” Allison revealed, and Julian knew that sparkle of mischief in her eyes. She wanted to see what a room full of gargantuan special operators sounded like, singing along.
“Fuck yeah you are!” Sikes stood in the corner with a reedier-looking Whitecrest and crossed his arms with a happy grin. “Ain’t nobody don’t like a good cheesy musical, I reckon!”
“I don’t gotta sing, do I?” Daar grumbled.
“Oh, you better sing, furball. We all hafta sing. Happiness is mandatory.”
“Best if we give Daar an exemption,” Regaari recommended. “If he tries howling along we’ll never hear the movie.”
“Hey! Many Sisters and Mothers have praised my vocal skills!”
Regaari gave him a sly flick of his ears. “Praised your silver tongue, maybe. Not your singing voice.”
The Gaoians all chittered in a higher pitch, which must have been a jeer judging by the humans’ reaction. Daar didn’t seem to mind either way but his ear did flick once when even Xiù joined in the laughter and raised her voice. “No, he has to sing. I know the perfect movie. The Jungle Book! He can be Baloo!”
Kovač clapped and whooped. “Fuck yeah! Kipling!”
Daar’s singing voice was, in fact, just as terrible as promised. It was precisely like Xìqǔ opera in all the worst ways, without any of the obvious talent or skill. It was fun, though, and everyone seemed to enjoy a boisterous evening of loud singalong.
Eventually though it was time for bed—HEAT apparently was a proponent of ‘early to bed, early to rise’—leaving Hammond and Firth alone with Julian, Allison, and Xiù.
“We’ve got a cot if ‘ya want,” Firth nodded at Hammond. “The CQ down the way has full visibility on every way in or out of the barracks, and it’s got security cameras, too.”
“I’d appreciate that,” he said gratefully. “I suppose…”
“Shower’s down the hall, kitchen downstairs. Get ‘yerself squared away, I’ll watch ‘em if you want.”
Another thankful nod, and now they were alone with Righteous.
“Aren’t you going to bed?” Allison asked.
“Nope.” Firth made himself comfortable. “Me and Blac got first watch, he’s just outside the door. Yer havin’ a guard twenty-four seven until orders come in sayin’ otherwise.”
“Thought you said this is the safest place we could be right now?”
“Yup. ‘Cuz we’re watching you.” Firth rolled his huge neck. “‘Sides. You three have a lot on yer minds, I can tell.”
“You got that right…” Julian muttered.
“How are ya holdin’ up? Fer real, now.”
“Like I’ve had my ass kicked five days in a row,” Julian confessed, candidly. “They burned down my house, man.”
“And now they bombed and shot up our spaceship, killed…” Allison trailed off and sighed heavily. “Killed people. Doesn’t really fucking matter how many.”
”One is too many,” Xiù agreed.
“And for what? Alien protection? When that’s literally what we’re trying to do?” Allison shook her head. “I just…I’m done. I’m fucking done with Earth. Every time I go back there I’m reminded why I didn’t want to go back.”
Julian nodded emphatically at that.
“Come on, haven’t’cha had any good experiences on Earth?” Firth asked. “No good memories at all?”
There was an awkward silence, and when Julian glanced at Xiù he found she was watching him intently.
“…Yosemite.”
“Yeah.”
“…okay, Yosemite was nice,” Allison admitted.
“You spent the whole time reading in the tent!” Xiù said.
“Sure. Nice and cosy. And then you two came back and we snuggled up and listened to the rain and had s’mores and cocoa. And that’s kinda the point. All my best memories of Earth involve either being alone or being with you.” Allison shrugged helplessly. “And I met both of you out there.” She waved her hand skyward.
“Anywhere else?”
Allison thought about it. “Minnesota. And…hell, when I was abducted I was out riding my bike on Route 3A out of Quincy. Used to do that all the time for fun.”
“Monument Valley,” Julian recalled. “Grampa took me down there when I was a kid.”
Xiù sighed. “Stanley Park in the fall…”
“So the problem ain’t Earth, really,” Firth pointed out. “It’s the people. Sounds like you guys have taken a beating to yer faith in humanity, right?”
“I’ve tried not to,” Xiù said. “I try to think the best of everyone, but…”
“But your friend’s dad is dead, and that makes it hard to keep level about it.”
“…He was a good man,” Julian said quietly, as Xiù nodded. “He had vision, talent…kindness.”
Allison nodded “And if he thought we were doing something monstrous with the things he made, he’d have told us straight up.”
“Yeah,” Xiù agreed. “It’s hard to keep level about it.”
“Sounds familiar.” Firth turned sideways on the couch and put his hands on his knees. “Wanna hear my take on it?”
“Lay it on us,” Allison told him.
“Well…look, I ain’t gonna rehash the whole awful story, but me? I ain’t a nice guy, I just play one on TV. Guys like me, it’s awful fuckin’ easy ‘ta take the easy way an’ just, like, punch your problems away, or whatever. Seems ‘ta me like right now, nobody’d blame y’all fer bein’ pissed at literally fuckin’ everything. But that’s the thing. It’s the easy way, and it’s wrong. And you three, ‘yer better’n that. Does easy sound good to you? Or does easy sound like some fat fuck with a dead-end job eatin’ like shit an’ veggin’ out in front of TV every night?”
Julian glanced at the girls, who glanced at each other. He had a point: it wasn’t like the three of them had shied away from challenge over the last couple of years. It was a harsh way to put things, but then again Allison had had similar thoughts after their trip to San Francisco.
“Thing is? Way too many people take it easy their whole lives. It ain’t many of us who are willing to put in the hard work to do it the right way, every time. People who do crime? Terrorists? Crooked politicians and all that? Why are they doin’ that shit? It’s ‘cuz they feel hopeless and helpless, or they feel like they have to do something but don’t know how to do it right. But that’s the thing. You three sure as fuck ain’t any of those things. You can dictate the time and place of your battles, man. That’s rare, because that’s gotta be earned. And, hell: why earn it the hard way when you can shortcut with a bomb?”
“You’re saying, what?” Allison asked. “That the assholes have good reasons under it all?”
“Nah. I’m saying they’re fuckin’ assholes.” Firth shook his head. “They’re lazy, they’re useless, they’re fuckin’ losers. That’s why they do what they do, ‘cuz they’re too fuckin’ weak to do things the right way. But in the end they don’t matter ‘cuz they always lose. Always.”
“How d’you figure?”
“Your expedition’s gettin’ funded, ain’t it?”
Allison already had her mouth open to retort before what he was saying filtered through. She paused, blinked, then settled back in her chair with a thoughtful frown.
“They always lose,” Firth repeated with a slightly smug nod. “They lose ‘cuz the world’s full of good people, too. People who get through life the hard way ‘cuz it’s the right way. It’s just…sometimes, they’re hard to notice. But they’re there. And there’s a literal army of ‘em around you right now, here an’ on Earth, all helpin’ to get this mission off the ground an’ save the Tengy-wek.”
Xiù flinched at his mispronunciation, but she nodded.
“So, y’know…” Firth finished off with a shrug. “Don’t bum out. Y’all wouldn’t even be in this room right now if there weren’t an assload of good people on Earth who want y’all to succeed. We all do, even mean ‘ol shits like me.”
There was a hammering on the door. Firth sighed and bounced up to meet what turned out to be Warhorse, buried under a stack of bedding, a huge meal for Firth and a pile of what looked like coursework. He grumbled about homework, built himself a nest, and set to it.
“Anyway…y’all got the whole HEAT all cozied up in here t’keep ‘ya safe, even Daar for the next day or two ‘fore we both go back to Earth. Try an’ relax if ‘ya can.”
“Daar’s going to Earth?”
“He’s been back and forth, yeah. He’s doing some pretty advanced training and we wanted to get it done in the winter before pollen and stuff, just in case he’s allergic.”
Xiù raised her hand. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“It could be, yeah. We’re not taking any chances, specially ‘cuz…well, ask him if you want. He’s got next shift with ‘Horse. Anyhoo, I’m goin’ on leave finally, gonna get me some bow huntin’ on the special season they’ve got right now. Daar’s prob’ly gonna come along, too. Hills are straight lousy with deer and there ain’t enough predators…also, I ain’t wrassled my bros or my ‘pa since I started this whole thing, gotta re-assert my dominance, heh.”
Julian couldn’t resist cracking a smile. He had to admit, he enjoyed hanging out with the HEAT members, and especially Firth. It took him back to his circle of friends at school, before his abduction. Amir and Lewis had both been too…cerebral. Firth was somehow the complete opposite of that, despite that he was thumbing back to his bookmark halfway through a heavy-looking textbook on…something. He was spinning a highlighter pen idly around the thumb of one giant mitt and he stuck his tongue out slightly as he settled in to take his notes.
“Anyway. Imma just fart around in this book for the next couple hours, you guys get some sleep. And…maybe give people a chance? They’re why I do what I do.”
Julian shared a glance with his girlfriends and nodded. “It’s…been a long day,” he said. “Maybe we’ll feel better for getting some rest.”
The girls nodded and untangled themselves from each other to help him set up a nest of bedding in the corner, just like they’d slept in for most of their time in the Box back in Omaha. Firth turned the light off for them and read by the light of a finger torch instead while the three made themselves comfortable.
Julian found himself in the middle, with each of his shoulders being used for a pillow. It was the girls’ go-to when they were both feeling insecure.
Honestly, it worked for him too.
He would have expected to lie awake and think for a while, especially seeing as he was sleeping on a strange floor in a strange room under guard, in the aftermath of a bombing. He kind of felt like his mind should have raced. Reality was different. Something in his head had obviously been starved for peace and quiet for some time, and the moment it descended, he fell asleep.
He dreamed about his camp on Nightmare.
Date Point: 13y2m1w AV
Camp Tebbutt Biodrone Internment facility, Alaska, USA, Earth
Champion Meereo of Clan Longear
The humans had answered the problem of how to contain the potentially severe threat of biodroned individuals through uncompromising means—by surrounding them with ice and bears. Miles upon miles upon miles of both.
Camp Tebbutt was actually quite a pleasant place to live, all told. Each interned individual had a spacious and well insulated barracks hut all to themselves and an effectively unlimited budget for creature comforts, communications notwithstanding. The scenery was something to behold as well—muscular mountains, garlanded with thick forests and threaded by water so pure and so cold that even the distant note of it on the wind was enough to sting the nose.
Those were the pleasant scents. It also carried all the olfactory markers of death, certain and unpleasant, for any biodrone who worked up both the suicidal audacity and the luck to somehow make it past three layers of concertina wire, seven sniper towers and the patrols on dog sleds.
If any ever did somehow skip through those obstacles, the manhunt would inevitably end in finding their gnawed and frozen corpse somewhere among the trees. Meereo could smell that story, waiting on the wind.
Sensibly, none of the biodrones had ever made the attempt. Some had even declined to live in the camp entirely and had instead opted to be stored in stasis, anticipating the day when strategy and medicine would combine to allow their rehabilitation.
Nobody anticipated that day would come soon. The forty people living in the camp were getting by as well as they could considering they came from a breathtaking variety of walks of life. A couple of Americans, the poor German guy whose demon had shot the girl on Cimbrean, a Japanese Hephaestus worker who’d taken on a memory augmentation implant that human medicine couldn’t safely remove.
Their unofficial leader and representative was the camp’s first internee, Hugh Johnson, and Meereo was finding that the role seemed to suit him. Johnson was open about his emotions and experiences, freely admitted to his nightmares, and seemed to have a knack for knowing exactly what might talk one of his fellows around to a more calm mood.
In private, he admitted that helping the others was the only thing that kept him sane. The Hierarchy had even stolen his face, replacing his original features with something nondescript and forgettable. His perspective was an interesting personal insight that juxtaposed usefully with the more official and detached observations of the camp staff and guards.
“Another poor bastard,” he noted, distracting Meereo from his olfactory exploration of the landscape.
Meereo’s ears swivelled before he turned his head, and as they did so he caught the first roar of a helicopter on the cool air.
“How do you know?” he asked. He himself had arrived on a helicopter, with his huge and sensitive ears plugged by orange foam rubber as protection against the primitive vehicle’s howling engines. His presence on Earth, let alone at Camp Tebbutt, was a well-guarded secret—The humans were very interested indeed in the possibilities created by his “ghost trap.”
It had taken him some search-work on Google to figure out why they had nicknamed him “Egon.” After that he’d started shooting back that on this planet, the spores, molds and fungi could kill him, so he stayed well away. This had gone down very well indeed.
“There isn’t a scheduled delivery today and that’s a blackhawk, not a chinook,” Johnson explained, and sighed. “War’s still going on I guess.”
“I can’t comment,” Meereo told him, apologetically. Even here, under the umbrella of a wormhole suppression field, the biodrones were compartmentalized as much as possible against the possibility that a ghost might use them for a listening post. They gossipped, of course, but they never got a scrap of official information except in the occasional rare and heavily sanitized pamphlet.
“I know, I know…” Johnson sighed. He pulled his coat tighter around him, just before the helicopter growled overhead and blasted them both with freezing air as it turned, dipped and alighted delicately onto the detention center’s rooftop landing pad all in one easy motion. Human pilots could make machinery dance when they wanted to.
Four silhouettes dismounted in an efficient bustle, carrying what was obviously a stasis coffin, and the phone in Meereo’s pocket buzzed urgently just as they vanished into the elevator.
“Guess they want you to see how they welcome the newbie, huh?”
“Something like that,” Meereo agreed. His actual job was to capture the ghost as it tried to escape. “I’ll see you later at the poker game.”
“Wear a hat or glue those ears down this time, buddy. You’re an open book with those paddles doing semaphore on your roof.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Meereo felt his ears swivel backwards and flatten down in embarrassment, and duck-nodded. “Thank you.”
“Later.”
The guards at Tebbutt were incomparable professionals, and well briefed on the seriousness of their duties. Every important door had at least two, and anybody returning from spending any time in the biodrone compound got their head checked for implants. No exceptions, no favoritism, just the curious joke ’It’s-a me, Meereo! once they thought he was out of earshot, which again had taken some research to decrypt.
They were entertaining games, he had to admit.
The new arrival was being put through an X-ray CT to determine the exact nature and location of all his implants. He’d already been declared clear of any kind of a wormhole beacon or else he never would have been brought inside either of the system forcefields, but a thorough assessment of his implants was necessary for his long-term prognosis.
As Meereo entered, he could already see that this one was here for the long term. He’d had the full biodrone treatment: total lobotomy, implantation and reinstallation. That on top of an existing translator implant and the control interface for a confiscated cybernetic arm.
Like always, ’Cowboy’ was there to watch the newcomer through the process. He was Camp Tebbutt’s director, and took the charge personally. He glanced sideways at Meereo as he entered, and gave a welcoming nod.
“Zane Reid,” he said, by way of introducing the new internee.
“He’s had a rough time,” Meereo noted, making some mental notes about the sturdy metal socket where the patient’s arm ended abruptly mid-humerus. It was obviously a custom design, and the damn thing looked more like it was meant for industrial robotics than a medical prosthesis.
“Yeah. Poor bastard was struggling with chronic mental health problems even before the Corti grabbed him. Callous and unemotional traits, narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder…What a mess. Without his meds and a counsellor he musta gone completely off the rails. And then some asshole cut his arm off. And then somehow Big Hotel caught up with him.” Cowboy sighed and rubbed his nose. “And now I gotta lock him up. How much can life dump on one guy, huh?”
“Ghost status?” Meereo asked, taking refuge in professionalism.
“Pretty sure he’s still hosting. HEAT team slapped a stick-n-sleep on him and he’s been sedated or in stasis ever since. The surgical team is scrubbing up.”
Meereo nodded while his ears flattened sideways. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing human brain surgery in action—the briefing alone had been grim enough. But unless the implants were all properly sabotaged then as soon as they were able to communicate with each other again via Reid’s neural pathways, the ghost within them could just initiate a self-destruct and kill him instantly with a massive cerebral haemorrhage.
It had come as a shock to learn that humanity had the medical technology necessary for such involved surgery, in a roundabout way. They couldn’t properly dissect and repair cerebral tissue, but they could insert a catheter into a peripheral artery and thread the probe through the copious blood vessels supplying a human’s huge, oxygen-hungry brain. It was delicate, alarmingly crude, viscerally disturbing, and one hundred percent successful so far.
Once complete, they could hopefully wake the Reid-biodrone, open the “honey trap” escape route and with luck the Igraen ghost would bolt straight into Meereo’s claws. And Reid himself would get a shot at rehabilitation and eventual reintegration.
… In theory.
In reality, a million things could go wrong, but the opportunity to dissect Igraen ghosts in a digital environment and figure out how they worked had already promised to yield a quantum surge forward in Gaoian programming, and the humans were even more excited. The stony road to true artificial intelligence was potentially opening in front of them, not to mention the potential wealth of strategic intelligence.
“Will his arm be returned?”
“As soon as we’ve removed the fusion blade, yeah. He had one hidden inside it.”
Out through the glass, the surgical team finished taking their notes and removed the patient to be prepped for surgery. Cowboy rolled his shoulders and neck, producing a satisfying series of clicks. “Time to get your magic box ready,” he suggested.
“It’s been waiting all week.”
Cowboy nodded again, and stopped looking tired for a second. He stood a little straighter, adjust his jacket, somehow seemed to lose a few wrinkles just by the change in his body language.
“…Good,” he said. “Let’s get that fucking thing out of him.”
Date Point: 13y2m1w AV
Nofl’s lab, Alien Quarter, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Gabriel Arés
“Chief! What a delight!” Nofl bowed with a flourish, inviting Gabe to enter his lab. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You know why I’m here, Nofl,” Gabe grunted. “We had a deal. I’m here to honor it.”
Ridiculously, the skinny little gray bounced on the spot and clapped his hands gleefully. It had to be an affectation; nothing about the gesture looked native to Corti body language, which was subtle to the point of nonexistence.
“Darling, it’s not even Christmas!” he exclaimed.
Gabe sighed. “Could you please drop the act just once?”
“Oh, Chief. Aren’t I allowed to have any fun?” Corti mouths weren’t made for pouting, but Nofl was clearly enjoying himself and tried anyway. It looked more like he was trying to suck a pine nut through a straw.
“You tell me. Thought fun was verboten in Corti circles.”
“Racist, dear.” Nofl turned and trotted smartly up the stairs. “But accurate. But, you know me. I think the Directorate can go suck a dick.”
Gabe rolled his eyes and took hold of the handrail to haul himself up the stairs behind him. “You’re determined to be extra scandalous today, huh?”
“It’s only scandalous because I’m not human. Come on, come on, I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for months.”
“Why so eager?” Gabe asked, grunting as he hauled his injured leg up another step.
“Oh, just a lifetime of aiming metaphorical middle fingers at Directorate dogma. And it’s about to bear fruit! A steel-banner nobody, about to surpass every silver darling they have in one procedure. Can you blame me?”
“If it works.”
“O ye of so very little faith! Come on, dear.”
Nofl vanished through the door at the top and Gabe heard him rattling around and performing some tone-deaf approximation of humming to himself as he got things ready. He took the opportunity to lean on the rail and wince. The Crue-D therapy for his head injury had done something to stabilize the leg, but had achieved nothing with regards the nerve dysfunction. Mostly, half his ass and the top of his leg was just permanently numb, except when it suddenly sent a red-hot nail spiking up his back.
Nofl’s lab was the equivalent of a studio apartment above a shop. The Locayl downstairs had moved to Cimbrean as an augmentation surgeon with a sideline in nanotattoos. Nowadays he was primarily a tattoo artist thanks to an insatiable human thirst for novelty. People were taking vacations on Cimbrean specifically to get ink done by an alien.
Including his own son, which Gabe wasn’t particularly happy about. But…what could he do besides grouse? When it came down to it, a nanotattoo wasn’t quite as stupid a decision as the old-fashioned ink variety. They could be turned off, at least.
“No dawdling, dear!” Nofl called, spurring Gabe to sigh and heave himself up the last few steps to the top.
Nofl was standing on a stool to finish loading an injector. He flapped his hand vaguely in the direction of the massage table against the wall by the door.
“Lie down, face down. No need to undress, just expose the site of the injury,” he instructed, sounding blessedly businesslike now that he was busy. Feeling vaguely that he must be absolutely insane to have agreed to this, Gabe obeyed and made himself comfortable.
Nofl hopped off his stool and his feet made a gentle pat-pat noise as he minced to Gabe’s side and got up on a different stool. There was a hum, and a sensation of warmth around Gabe’s kidneys.
“What’s that?”
“Just scanning the damage. Oh my, this was an ugly one, wasn’t it? Tsk tsk.” The tut was pronounced rather than properly tutted. The warm sensation turned cool.
“Rifle round to the lower back. Glanced off my spine and exited out my side. Miracle I didn’t lose a kidney,” Gabe recalled.
“And they rebuilt you with screws and titanium, oh dear. Well, when your medical technology is so far behind the curve I suppose this is as good as you can expect.”
Nettled, Gabe resisted the urge to defend human medicine. “Nofl, when the hell are you going to start?”
“Start?” The humming and cold sensation stopped. “Darling, I just finished.”
“Pull the other one, at least I’ll feel it!”
“No, really! Stand up, darling.”
Gabe turned to give him an incredulous stare, but Nofl returned his gaze with a well-rehearsed expression of earnest sincerity and stepped down off the stool.
“Look, you can brag about how great Corti medicine is all you like,” Gabe began, sitting up, “but no way did you alread—¡Madre mía!”
“Language, dear!” Nofl chastised him, and for once Gabe forgave him the smugness. With a bewildered frown plastered across his eyebrows he stood up tentatively and found that the leg responded perfectly, with a strength and control he’d forgotten he ever had. Experimentally he hopped from foot to foot. He kicked it out, re-familiarizing himself with the feeling of…well, feeling. He stood on tip-toe, bounced on his feet, did a little one-legged twirl. Walked backwards for the first time in years. Tentatively, he jumped. Then he jumped again. Then a third time, leaping high and tucking his knees to his chest for a second. Once grounded again he squatted down and bounced on his toes.
Nofl nodded approvingly. “Much better! This is as a human should be, don’t you think?”
“How—?” Gabe asked.
“Darling, you are a clever man but the explanation would be so far beyond you. If you were to make a serious study of regenerative medicine, then—”
“No, never mind. I just…” Gabe shook his head at himself. ”He sido un baboso. I should have done this earlier!”
“Deathworld skepticism. A useful survival mechanism! Also, annoying.” Nofl returned his used equipment to its proper place. “But, you got here in the end. All fixed! Unless you want—”
”No.” Gabe said, then cleared his throat and softened. “No. Thank you. This is…More than enough.”
“Oh, suit yourself dear,” Nofl indulged him, flapping his hand dismissively over his shoulder.
Gabe jogged on the spot for a few seconds more to marvel at his regained mobility, then calmed himself down with a deep breath and a shake of his head. “Anyway, a deal is a deal. Have you made your appointment with the surgeon downstairs?”
Nofl finished packing his tools and turned around, carefully sanitizing his hands. Even with the biofilter fields and frontline implants, that was generally a good idea for ETs who laid hands on a human. “That I have, darling. It’s been a heavy burden, I must say…”
“Good. Then be here tomorrow at noon. Lieutenant-Colonel Powell and Admiral Knight will be here to visit.”
“…Oh? Why?”
“Because you just earned your way into something that’ll make fixing my busted ass look like a high school science project.”
“Cryptic. What exactly is in it for me?”
Gabe grinned his biggest, toothiest grin and was pleased when he saw Nofl reflexively flinch. He knew he was wearing the one smile to which aliens never quite adapted.
“How would you like to heal the entire Corti race?” he asked.