The Great Return
Because Bann was currently trapped in the holo-device, Laes had to figure out how to administer the proper dose of medicine himself.
He tried to at least find a vein, but getting the needle to prick the right place was hard with his hands shaking.
Eventually he managed to do it after jabbing himself a few times first.
There was only a little bit of medicine left. The bottle was almost empty. He might have enough for one more dose, but after that he'd have to cope with the pain on his own.
He was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to do that... his body would probably send him into a coma before it allowed him to feel that much agony.
"Can I see?"
He dropped the container and the needle in surprise. They clattered to the floor as he quickly turned to see Chakri watching him from a short distance away.
Still shaking, he ran his hand down his face as he slowly and carefully crouched down. He reached for the container and the needle since he didn't want to leave either of these things lying around.
"I thought you were..." Laes sighed. "Where's your mom?"
"She's busy right now," Chakri responded before stepping a bit closer.
She reached out for the medicine bottle, and he let her take it.
Chakri really was a curious girl... she squinted as she read over the label.
"Did you get this from the Irkens?" she asked.
"Yeah... um... Filik gave it to me," he responded. "He's over there," he gestured to the navigator who was sitting down the hall a ways, reading another magazine or something.
"And in those pictures an Irken was being nice to a Vortian too," she commented as she handed the bottle back. "I thought they were too much machine, but it looks like they can be nice too."
"They can be nice sometimes..." Laes responded, and he placed both the needle and the bottle under the cot's mattress.
Hold on... was she talking about the video? Had she been watching? Did she see the part where the Irken was screaming because of the Invaders?
"Um... Chakri... how much did you see?"
"I saw all of it," she stated.
"All of it...?" Laes repeated in disbelief. "Then... the part where the Irken was... um... with those glowing people..."
"He was reprogrammed right?" Chakri offered.
She sounded very matter-of-fact... almost like... Juelee.
"Yes, but... you shouldn't really be watching that kind of stuff..."
She tilted her head. "Why not?"
"Um... because... you're a child and... well... children shouldn't watch scary things..."
"It wasn't scary though."
He rubbed his head and let out a long sigh.
This girl reminded him a lot of Juelee who reminded him of his sister and his niece... he really shouldn't be trying to form these connections anymore... he couldn't help it though.
He'd grown up with his younger sister. His niece was adorable and he loved her too.
That's probably why he became attached to Juelee so quickly...
If he wasn't careful he'd start fretting over Chakri too. Then if she died...
Wow. Ok. Why was his brain thinking like that?
He shook his head to clear it.
"I look young, but I'm old enough to do stuff by myself," Chakri insisted. "Mother even gave me..." her expression lifted. "I'll be right back."
She turned around and started running somewhere.
Laes watched her disappear into the large crowd of working Vortians.
Was he supposed to wait...?
He looked towards the computers and saw Veena had reattached the Irken's PAK.
She didn't sound very optimistic about finding a solution anytime soon.
Darden and Pain also made it perfectly clear that a reprogrammed Irken was better off dead.
He stood by his cot waiting for Chakri to return.
When she did, she was carrying something in her hands. It had glowing lights and it kind of looked like a gun of some sort with a dial. There was also an opening in the handle.
"I'm going to show you something really good," she said as she pointed the gun at herself.
Laes' first reaction was of surprise, but it hurriedly switched to concern.
"Should you be using..." he started, but then she pushed it against his arm and he felt a sharp prick.
"Ouch!" He recoiled and held his arm to his chest.
There was a small hole there, and it was starting to bleed.
"Chakri... what are you doing?" he asked.
Not only was that device probably a gun of some kind it was also sharp and pointy.
Children shouldn't be playing with something like that.
She turned it around and pointed it at him. One of her fingers was on something that definitely looked like a trigger.
His cowering response was starting to kick in. He'd already been shot once. He really didn't want to get shot again.
"Hold out your arm; the one without a hand on it."
"This is dangerous..." Laes pressed, and he took an uneasy step back. "You shouldn't be using... whatever that is..."
"Just hold out your arm," Chakri told him stubbornly. "It'll be fine. It only hurts a little."
"But..." he tried to protest, but her eyes narrowed at him.
He wasn't going to win any arguments with her. He could already tell.
"Ok... but you need to tell me what you're doing first... please?"
"I'm making you better," she replied.
"Making me better...?" he repeated.
With a gun? That seemed kind of strange... but then he'd never seen a device quite like the one she was holding.
Should he humour her?
What if she ended up shooting off his other hand though? Then he wouldn't have any left.
Still... she seemed very serious about it... he swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly stretched out his bad arm towards her.
There was a stream of white light. It was so bright he couldn't look at it.
He could feel his stump tingling. He had to resist the urge to pull it away.
Then there was a stinging sensation.
The light stopped and he clutched his throbbing stump close... except it was moving... and there were fingers... and a hand... and... what happened to his stump!?
"Ack!" he yelped in surprise and stumbled backwards which really hurt.
"Wh-what happened?" he stammered, looking down at Chakri who was smiling at him.
"This is my re-integrator gun," she explained, holding it up so he could take a better look at the device. "It has a biological setting and a non-biological one too. It can restore almost anything, but it only has four charges left because it's an older model."
"Ah...?" Laes attempted to use words, but he couldn't.
His mind was too busy running in circles. Flexing his fingers, he stared at this hand... it had the same skin colour and number of fingers.
Everything about it was perfect, and this freaked him out even more.
"It had to poke you to get your DNA, otherwise it wouldn't work."
"Where did you get that from?" Laes asked, using his new hand to point at the strange device she was holding.
"Mother gave it to me," she answered.
It sounded like she wasn't going to offer any kind of explanation.
"No, I mean..." he ran his new hand down his face.
It was definitely easier getting used to having it again rather than not having it.
"How do you have something like that? It can't be from Vort."
"It's not Vortian technology," Chakri responded, again without offering any more information.
That wasn't just something someone could pick up just anywhere. He'd never seen something like that before in his life, and since he was a Vortian engineer he'd seen a lot of things.
Something about this wasn't right.
"Chakri... where is your mother right now...?"
The young Vortian smiled.
"She's busy, but if you want to meet her I can call her."
She tapped her chin.
"Though mother said to only call after I send her lots and lots of pictures... I'm not sure I have enough yet."
"But... but shouldn't you be with your family?"
"Mother knows where I am," Chakri insisted, folding her arms as she frowned at him. "I'm old enough to decide for myself, so please don't treat me like a worm baby."
Worm baby...?
Zim was the only one who called Vortlings that.
His mind balked and he took an uneasy step back. There was no way Chakri was an Invader... she couldn't be... even her shadow was Vortian.
The technology she was holding was very advanced though.
It was possible she was using something similar to the hologram device, only much better.
"Are you and Invader...?" he asked her before he could think of stopping himself.
She frowned. "I don't know what that is."
He smacked himself in the forehead.
Of course 'Invaders' wouldn't actually call themselves that.
The name was originally used by pre-PAK Irkens who later unknowingly adopted the term for themselves when they began infiltrating planets.
"Ok... Chakri... I don't think you should show anyone else your re-integrator..."
Even if she was an Invader she was still a child.
The Irkens probably wouldn't see it that way though. They didn't seem to care whether someone was a child or not... everyone had been treated the same in the prison... except... there weren't very many children prisoners...
Maybe they were being kept in another wing?
His chest constricted. That had to be it... the children were just somewhere else...
It was getting difficult to breathe.
Negi was in this wing though... if the Irkens were keeping all of the children together they wouldn't have made such an obvious mistake.
Maybe... no... they couldn't be dead... not all of them..
"Ok, I'll go put it back," she agreed.
Her voice snapped him out of his darker thoughts, and he watched as she hurried away somewhere.
Oh shoot... he had to hide his hand too.
He quickly looked around and decided to tear a piece of the sheet off the cot and wrap it around his hand.
Hopefully no one would notice his hand had mysteriously regrown.
Breathing a sigh as he tied a knot and flexed his wrist. It looked like the fabric would hold for now, but even after all the practice he still wasn't a very good knot tier for some reason...
Suddenly he felt very tired. He clutched his head feeling extremely dizzy... the hallway was spinning.
He turned and reached for the cot, hoping to steady himself.
Then his vision blurred and he felt his face hit the cold hard ground before everything became black.
Author's Notes/Confession: I wanted to call this chapter: "the Great Return of Laes' Hand" but that would have been a spoiler, so I cut out the hand part. Oh haha, whoops. Dark humor.