Session 13
"Ed feels better. Time to get up."
For the eighth time that morning alone the nurse gently pushed her back down onto the bed. "Not yet."
"But Ed is fine now." She popped back upright in the bed, gangly limbs discarding the blanket nearly onto the floor.
"No. Not until the doctor clears you."
"Ein says Ed is alright." She hugged Ein with his paws dangling over her arms.
"Is Ein a doctor?"
Ed leaned over and looked him in the eyes. "Ein, are you a doctor?"
The dog sneezed, his ears flopped forward.
"Ein says, close enough."
The nurse shook her head, weariness wrinkling her eyes. "Please just stay there until our doctor says it's ok."
"Nyyyyooooo!" She whined, falling backward against the bed in an over-dramatic pout.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jet watched this play out, unable to fight the smile that climbed to his face. At the moment it was the small things. After two days of rest, Ed's irrepressible banter had returned. It still seemed odd to see her dressed in the hospital garments. She'd flung the blanket back and sat with her legs folded, long mint colored pants and the matching side-tied wrap top covered her more than her typical cloths did when her arms were raised. Ein curled into a ball in her lap.
Jet laid back in his bed still feeling a bit run down despite the couple days of rest. He wasn't quite as eager to get up … except for one thing. His eyes drifted to the other two still lying in their beds, unresponsive despite everything the doctors had thrown at the invisible barriers keeping them imprisoned.
A straight up shot of adrenaline had been unable to put a dent in things. Spike and Faye still lay there. Not even his artificial eye responded when opened, proof that at the very least Spike was dug in deep.
"What was that. Ein?" Ed looked down into the dog's eyes, he whined up at her softly. "Really?"
Jet glanced back at her, it seemed silly … and yet apparently Ein had sent off the instructions that saved their lives. He didn't have a better explanation of how Bob learned about their fate. So, maybe it was worth humoring her. "What is it?"
With a serious expression Ed locked eyes with Jet. "Ein says that Morpheus is a stoner."
Wrinkling his brow, he cocked his head. "Wha'?"
She looked down as Ein snuffed and shook his head. "Oooohhhh … has a stone … not a stoner."
"Has a stone? What the hell does that mean?"
She shrugged and pointed across the room. "When are Spike-person and Faye-Faye going to wake up?"
With a sigh, he shook his head. Wishing he could get up and do something. Hug her, hold Spike and Faye's hands, find some way to let them know they weren't alone. But the support lines were still in him. He had yet to leave the bed. "I don't know, kiddo."
They had to bide their time.
"We are going back to the Bebop without them? Ed doesn't want to leave them behind!" Ed tugged on Jet's pant leg as he rolled the door open.
"I told you, Ed. Until Spike and Faye wake up we're not equipped to handle their condi—" He stopped mid-word and stared into the living room. His hand thwapped his forehead with a solid smack. "My ship!"
The living room lay in shambles. Debris scattered everywhere. Items from the kitchen, the cargo bay, even Faye's overabundance of clothing littered the floor and dragged up and down the various staircases. Bob hadn't been joking when he said someone tossed the ship. They'd been thorough!
The tapping of metal on metal turned his head toward the lower corridor, the light on the stair cast a humongous familiar shadow that anywhere else might have elicited fear.
Jet's teeth squealed as his fists pumped. He glared down at Ein. "I want all six of those miscreants of yours front and center, now! Sick 'em!"
With a growl and his hackles fully raised, Ein scrambled in a charge down the stairs through the living room and vaulted down into the blue glow of the lower corridor. The space erupted with metallic hisses and screams, clatters of objects that were clearly in the way.
Seconds later, four of the chicken sized robotic compys stumbled up the stairs, scraps of debris hanging off of their metal scales. The moment they spied Jet, they halted in a colliding line. None of them moved aside from shaking so hard their scales rattled.
The clicking of Ein's claws echoed as he stalked up the steps and darted down the kitchen corridor. The crash of a bowl falling to the floor followed by an alarmed scream precluded the little dog carrying Huŏ, the red marked one, as he slashed his tiny metal claws uselessly at the neck he couldn't reach.
Ein slammed him down in front of Jet.
Huŏ scrambled to his feet, hissing … until Jet's artificial hand clamped around his neck, lifting his taloned feet from the deck. Immediately he kicked and twisted, trying to free himself. The moment Jet stared in his eyes, Huŏ froze.
"You freeloading little shits! One of you is missing." Red, black, blue, yellow, green … gold wasn't here. "Where is Qi?"
The four on the floor looked to one another. If diminutive robot dinosaurs could perform puppy eyes they were doing it.
That did nothing to placate Jet as he stared straight into Huŏ's eyes, all the frustration of the recent events unleashed. "Where is your ring leader?"
Ein padded into the room in a huff. He stood eye to eye with Shuĭ, the black marked one, and bared his teeth. The most cooperative of the group, flicked his nose toward the refrigerator.
Of all the … this is the one Spike taught to fetch him beer. This isn't the time for … unless. No, they didn't! "Ed, open the door."
She dashed down the steps and pried open the small door. Inside they found Qi's huddled metallic body. She touched him. The nudge was enough to unbalance him, the stiff body tipped forward and clanked to the floor. "Batteries dead. Need's juice."
"Go, put him under the bonsai growth lights." Jet slid a glance to Shuĭ, "I'm ashamed of you. You're usually the responsible one. Why didn't you let him out?"
Shuĭ pointed a claw up at Huŏ and chittered a massive barrage in what seemed to be an angry tone. Soon the others joined in, pushing and jostling one another.
"Enough!" Jet bellowed. "Huŏ, I would bet everything that you were behind this."
He scowled, crossing his tiny arms.
"Putting your leader on ice is cold." Empty handed, Ed vaulted up onto the back of the couch.
Jet rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples. "Seriously guys, we didn't need this. I wanted to come back to this ship and just start searching for answers. But left on your own you just had to trash the place. That's it. You've lost your privileges. From now on everyone of you are getting powered down when we leave the ship."
Their muzzles turned to the deck in unison.
Depositing Huŏ among the others he pointed, "Put it all back, now! Every piece. I want this ship the way we left it."
Huŏ hissed and stomped his feet. A low growl stopped him as he looked over his shoulder up into Ein's snarling face. The feisty compy stomped off, taking a handful of the debris with him. The other four had already started.
Turning on his heel, Jet made for the bridge.
"What is Jet doing?"
He didn't look over his shoulder as he climbed the steps. "Researching why Spike and Faye aren't waking up. Just cause the doctors don't know doesn't mean the info isn't out there."
A moment later he heard bare feet racing up behind him. As he sat down in the cockpit he spied Ed flopping down, her computer in front of her as she pulled her goggles down. She cracked her fingers and the little screens lit up.
The doctors had no luck, but Jet hadn't been able to put into words what had happened to them. There had to be answers out there somewhere. No way he was going to leave them like that. If there was a way to reunite the crew, he was determined to find it.
Stillness.
The only motion betraying they were alive was the rise and fall of their chests. They breathed. Jet stood between their beds, sorrow carved into his features. He had hoped that coming back today he would have an answer, at least a clue. But very little had come to light.
A smattering about Somnus buried in redacted files only hinted at some sort of research at the site many years ago. But none of the materials seemed to have survived. He would have put Ed on that trail, but when he'd tried to interrupt her she had turned and hissed at him. All it seemed they had gained was a restless night.
The doctor lingered in the doorway, she turned to try and leave apparently before being noticed. But Ein whined in her direction before putting his paws on Faye's bed and nosing her limp hand.
"Talk to me, doc. Any change?" He couldn't look away from them, paranoid of missing a rogue twitch.
She came to their sides and shook her head. "I am sorry. Whatever is wrong with them is beyond our understanding. They remained unresponsive yet again all through the night."
Ein shambled over to Spike's bed and cocked his head. After a pause on the left side, he wandered over to the right and put his paws on the blanket. Ed came up behind him and scratched his ears. He hopped on his back paws. "You want up boy?" Without asking if it was alright, she picked him up and placed him carefully beside Spike's broken arm.
"Ed," Jet reached forward, "he probably shouldn't be up there."
Wriggling up closer, Ein snuffled at Spike's motionless face. His nose pressed against the right eye. Once. Twice. Three times. He looked at Ed and whined.
"Get him off, Ed. He might disconnect something."
But she wasn't listening to him. Ed stepped closer, jaw slack, eyes wide. "Do you think so, boy?"
Ein barked, his paw batting at Spike's chest.
"True. But it depends on how deep it is. Ed might not be able to reach it. Ed doesn't know if it can be … "
Curling his lip, Ein growled at her before turning back to nose Spike's closed eye.
The doctor stared at the exchange, she held up a hand. "I would prefer it if the dog didn't do that."
"Wait." Jet held up a hand. "I think he's trying to tell us something."
"Spike?"
"No … Ein. Talk to me, Ed … what's he getting at?"
A slow smile grew on Ed's face as she turned to Jet. "Ein has a plan. We can see what Spike sees."
The doctor blinked. "The back of his eyelids?"
"No." Ed pointed. "Spike's eye, we can steal the images."
"His eye?" Jet scratched his head. "But that's … well it has a micro-computer. But it can't be hacked. It's not wire-less."
"So?" Ed's grin intensified. "We wire it. Any computer can be hacked."
Ed's computer sat on the table, she perched on the edge of Spike's bed madly typing away and exhaling in frustration as time after time entering the codes she hoped would work—didn't. She detested that Jet had been right thus far, hours into trying to circumvent the system lock down on the artificial organ had gone nowhere. At the moment he was sleeping in the bedside chair, Ein snoozed in his lap.
Ed growled. This is fitting. Spike's eye is as determined to keep it's secrets as Spike himself. Stubborn, stubborn, locked up tight!
At the start of this, with the help of the doctor, they had used a laparoscopic incision into Spike's temple to explore the cavity behind his eye. The mechanics were all there, packed in a neat little bio-capsule attached to the back of the eye ridge by small screws. The mechanical eyeball had a fiber optic bundle bridging to the micro-computer. From there another optic bundle had been spliced to what was left of his organic optic nerve. To everyone's shock there had been an access port on the external edge of the micro-computer. Even though it was in as deep as Ed had feared, that was no small trick plugging a cable into such a tiny port through the remote controls in the scope.
But they had it. A wire now taped to the side of Spike's head ran across the bed and into Tomato with the blank screen waiting to receive data.
Ed cursed as the computer's audio informed of another failed code, almost mocking her. "Come on! Spike is counting on us! We need to see what Spike sees! Now! Let—Ed—in!"
Her finger jammed the enter button.
This time the sound was different.
Ed inhaled sharply as the prompt spilled across he screen.
Calibration previously completed. Do you wish to enable the visual calibration program?
"Yesyesyesyes!"
The blank screen flickered. She pouted. "Nyyooo! Ed was wrong … looks like it won't wo—"
Her words cut short. On the screen an image formed, like a curtain rising. Her heart raced as she realized it was the eyelid opening. The outline of something tall and stone-like loomed, filling the screen. She leaned closer trying to pick out details.
Yes, that was stone. A very dark flecked stone of some sort. Granite?
A hand slammed against the surface, filling the view.
Ed nearly tumbled off the bed, screaming in surprise as she barely saved toppling to the floor.
The hand clawed at the lip at the base of the stone … slipping in the blood that caked the pale skin. As it sank down the surface the fingers left a red trail smeared behind.
She grabbed the screen the room echoed with her piercing scream, "Spike!"
See You Space Cowboy