Thel.
James’s eyes were adjusting to the dim light, and the blur was clearing as he kept them open. Thel was lying on a cot against the wall only a few feet to his right. He tried to call out to her for help, but only a hoarse and cruelly painful whisper left his lips. She was sound asleep. Death’s Counterfeit, he thought. Of course.
He broke from this train of thought and focused on the task at hand—he would have to do this himself. He began to pull with what little strength he had. Again, even with the painkillers running through his system, slowly pulling the needle out of his skin caused exceptional discomfort. He grimaced as he tried to work the metal object out of his arm. Since it had to have entered a vein, he knew it was deep. James wished for more strength, but he had none. He focused on the pain, hoping it would keep him awake long enough to work the needle out. It was an agonizing five-minute process, but finally, he worked the needle free. His arm began to bleed, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He needed to rest for a moment.
Without the painkillers or the sedatives going into his system, he knew he only needed a few minutes to go by before things would become easier. The pain would quickly increase, making him more alert. He concentrated on generating saliva and swallowing so he could tame the searing dragon in his throat. He looked at Thel and tried to call out to her again. His whisper was louder, but it still wasn’t enough to wake her out of her sleep. He knew she must have been exhausted. He looked at her dark hair and the exposed nape of her white neck. Everyone else had lost everything, but James still had Thel. She was alive, and he had to keep it that way.
When a few minutes had passed, James began to attempt the impossible. He rolled to his left. The pain was almost unbearable. He remembered trying to get to his feet after falling, following the mishap with the Zeus. That had only been the beginning. He squeezed his eyes tight and swore in his whispery voice. He remained on his left side for a few minutes more, before he attempted to move his left leg out from under him. He searched for the edge of the bed and let the leg guide him toward the cold floor.
When both his feet reached the ground, he held on to the side of the bed with both hands for a few minutes before trying to put all his weight on his legs; he could not afford to fall. To fall would undo everything and cost him and the rest of the survivors their future. It all depended on his first few steps. He very cautiously stepped forward and, with great trepidation, let go of his stranglehold on the bedsheets. He slowly took the dozen or so steps to the door of the room and exited.
Outside, a soldier was standing guard. His mouth fell open when he saw James. “Oh dear Lord!” he exclaimed.
“I need to see your commanding officer,” James began in a faint, sandpapery whisper. “Our survival depends on it.”
11
When Thel opened her eyes and remembered the nightmare she inhabited, she immediately turned her head to check on James. The bed was empty. Her heart jumped and seemed to stop momentarily, and her breath was ripped from her as she leapt to her feet in terror. “What!?” She began to race out of the room.
“Whoa! Hold on!” Rich exclaimed, his hands waving in the air as he stood to his feet from his position next to the wall at the side of the room. “I fell asleep. I was supposed to be watching you.”
“Watching me?”
“Yeah, but I just got in from three hours of recon duty with that psycho, Gernot. I’m a little drained after that. Imagine flying around for three hours with a guy who eats flesh because he likes it more than he likes you. Not a safe feeling.”
“What happened? Where is he?” Thel demanded impatiently.
“He’s okay,” Rich answered, waving his hands in front of himself instinctively for protection in case Thel tried to throttle him. “They told me to stay here and watch you to make sure you didn’t go running through the complex shocking people unconscious again!”
“Where is he? Where did they take him?” Thel repeated earnestly.
“They didn’t take him anywhere. He took himself.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“He’s awake. He’s already met with General Wong, and he’s set up in a lab on the other side of the complex.”
Thel blinked as she tried to digest this information. “They said he would be incapacitated for days.”
“Yeah, well, he gave himself a different prognosis.”
“Take me to him.”
“You bet.”
Rich walked briskly across the complex, Thel pushing them to move with a purpose. Rich noted the looks of the people in the complex who saw them as they walked by. They were back in their black uniforms now, and everyone knew who they were. The people were afraid, and Rich couldn’t understand why. Those people were the ones who ate flesh.
Thel was oblivious, almost not seeing where they were going, just worriedly staring into her imagination. What could have caused James to get up after suffering from such a terrible trauma? “Why is he in a lab?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know, Thel. Things have been moving really quickly. I’m not in the loop, but something is going down.”
They reached the door to the lab, and two guards moved aside to let them enter. Thel stopped for a moment when she saw James, back in his uniform, leaning over a countertop strewn with mechanical equipment and ancient computers. Old-timer and Djanet were working on nearby equipment. General Wong himself was there, his arms folded and a look of intense concern painted across his well-lined face.
James didn’t notice her come in at first and instead remained fixed above some sort of contraption, peering into a cylindrical protrusion.
“James!” Thel shouted.
James looked up then and smiled. “Thel,” he replied weakly.
Thel rushed toward him, but he held his arm up with a grimace to keep her at bay. “Slow! Go slow.”
Thel slowed her approach and embraced him gently. “You must be in agony.”
“It hurts,” he affirmed before kissing her.
The general looked across the room to Rich, as though Rich could explain the scene to him. Rich just shrugged and looked down at his feet for a moment while the kiss continued.
Thel broke from James’s lips and asked, “What’s going on?”
James took a deep breath before answering. “I’m going to kill the A.I.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I want to show you something,” James said to Thel and Rich. He took Thel by the hand and guided her over to one of the strange contraptions on the counter. “This is a microscope. If you look into the eyepiece, you’ll see a magnified view of one of my nans. I brought it back online, and look what happened.”
Thel looked into the eyepiece and watched the nan spin wildly, its sharp instruments thrashing violently. “Oh my God. This is how they died?”
James nodded in reply. “They were ripped apart from the inside.”
“That monster,” Rich whispered. A painful moment passed. Old-timer and Djanet had turned away from their work and held their heads down as an impromptu moment of silence was observed.
“I’ll get him,” James promised.
“How? You can barely move!” Thel protested.
“I’ll have that remedied in a few moments, though it doesn’t really matter. I won’t need my body for this.”