The Lows are a good time, but they never last long.
In the past century, engineers have tried to use ancient technologies to prolong them: dams. Submarines. All kinds of watercrafts. But after the melting of the glaciers and the increased cyclones, after the pillaging of the seabed and the shift of the tectonic plates that joined the earth, the ocean is not what it once was. The currents are too strong and unpredictable, and the only hope of survival when they rise is to retreat within the stronghold and pray that the All-father won’t let the water-tight sealing system fail.
According to the histories, humanity once tried to understand and change the world by which it was surrounded. It looked with curiosity at its place in the universe, pondered ways to better itself as a species, sought to travel and explore new worlds.
Now it would be great if we just survived till the next Low.
“Everything okay, Healer Kuznetsov?” Ulf asks, pulling me out of my reverie. “You’ve been staring out the windows and preparing those bandages for a while.”
“Yes. Yes, sorry.” With an apologetic smile, I make myself focus on his weathered face. “I’ll have you patched up in no time.”
Ulf is a soldier who has been in the engineering corps for a long time, but I’ve never treated him before. I’ve been seeing him more often since General Agard announced the start of efforts to ensure that the stronghold be safe at all times and able to humanely accommodate people at all social strata. Ulf, like most engineers, is enjoying this new mandate and finally getting credit for his hard work. I don’t blame him one bit—in fact, I know that if Dad were still here, they’d celebrate together. Probably get injured together, too.
Hence my presence here.
A few feet away from us, his fellow soldiers are resealing one of the portholes after finding early signs of stress fractures. Not quite a code red, but a situation urgent enough to warrant the dispatch of an early dedicated team here to the north wing.
I wasn’t supposed to come in today. But the stronghold spans miles, so it can take a while to reach the infirmary, and another one of General Agard’s rules is that a healer should always be on site. Since most of my colleagues are currently attending the expansion efforts by the south tower, I volunteered to go into the field.
And then I remembered what today is.
I better not get caught, or I’m screwed.
“Something on your mind, kid?” Ulf asks.
I don’t bother telling him that at twenty-two, I haven’t been a kid for a while. “No, no. I always get distracted when Highs go on so long.”
He snorts. “Don’t I know it. And it’s getting worse. My mother said that when she was born, the water wouldn’t even reach the peak of the east tower. These days, it submerges the south tower by several feet. Then again, my mother also kept insisting that unsubmerged dry land still existed. Other continents, she called them. Deep in the south. Lots of odd notions in that woman’s head.”
I hold back an eye-roll. I had this very argument with Lennart last week, and his reaction was as condescending as Ulf’s.
“It’s not that odd. Some even think that there might be other strongholds like ours, with even more people than in this one.” I gently remove the army-blue Kevlar cuisse from his thigh, setting it to the side and uncovering the thin engineering suit underneath. “Isn’t it nice, the idea that we might not be alone?” That if we’re not happy here, in this stronghold, there might be another place where we could be?
“Hard to believe, with Highs like these… The last one rose so suddenly, it destroyed lots of the expansion progress we made during the previous Low.” He sighs, then points at the gash in his leg, just under where his cuisse ended. “And now I’m injured, wasting precious time.”
“You’re doing great,” I reassure him. “I can coat your wound in collagen, but first I’ll need to use acid disinfectant on it. We are so low on anesthetic, we’ve been ordered to ration it for major surgery until we can collect more raw materials during the next Low. The other option is less painful, and it involves tape suturing your cut, but it’ll take much longer to heal—”
“I’ll take the collagen. I can handle it.”
I bow my head to hide a smile. I’ve been taking care of the engineering soldiers for nearly ten years, first as an apprentice, then as a healer. Not one has ever selected the second option. “Okay, then. I’m going to restrain you, just to make sure that you don’t accidentally move during treatment. That’ll minimize the scar tissue, and—”
“No need, no need.”
Oh, no. He’s one of those. “Sir, I would prefer if—”
“I’m not new here, kid. I’ve had way worse wounds. I need no restraints.”
I swallow a sigh at the predictable stubbornness of old Alphas. Normally, I would push back and force a harness on him. But none of my colleagues are around, and I know better than to pick a fight with an Alpha when we’re alone. “Very well,” I say, leaning forward to see to his injury.
He flinches back before I even touch him, eyes abruptly widening in shock. I pretend not to notice because this is a recurring experience for me—an Alpha getting a whiff of my scent and realizing that I’m an Omega.
It’s the reason I avoid getting close to people I don’t know well as much as possible. Everything about me screams Beta, and I’m happy to let them keep assuming that’s what I am. After all, I’m tall, and my muscles are wiry. My smell is faint. I don’t exude the kind of soft, sensual appeal that elicits an Alpha’s protective instinct. Simply put, I’m not like an Omega should be.
And there’s a reason for that.
Unfortunately, I can pinpoint the exact moment Ulf realizes the nature of my condition, because his face fills with something that looks too much like pity for my taste, and he no longer meets my eyes.
I hate it. So much so, I hide it with a quick smile. “Ready?” I ask, digging into the back of my brown cotton uniform pants. I find my pocketknife and use it to further cut open the fabric of his trousers. “I’m going to pour the disinfectant. It’s going to hurt.”
“You said that already. And as I told you—”
It all happens really fast, and for the most part, I’m proud of how I react. Ulf may have had way worse, but the second the acid pools inside the wound, he screams as though I’m squeezing his bowels out of his body. His leg reflexively extends into a kick, but I fully expected it and easily dodge the hit.
What I did not expect is the punch. His fist makes contact with my eye with so much force, I drop backward, first onto my ass, then belly up, the cold stone floor hard against the back of my head.
Well, I think, mortified. That was a first.
“I am sorry— Healer? Healer? I don’t know what came over me! I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt,” I lie, deeply annoyed at myself for allowing it to happen.
The man’s apologies continue, but I ignore him in favor of lying there for a minute, taking stock of my life. When I finally open my eyes, a familiar face is scowling down at me.