Disclaimers in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
- . -
Glass cracked sharply beneath her step, and she flinched.
Everything was all wrong.
She knew it, long before she opened her eyes to look. The very air around her felt like it was burning, boring into her skin with tiny particles of fire. The ground beneath her bare feet was covered in glass; she could feel the sharp edges clearly beneath her usually ticklish sole. A rough wind cried as it crawled between what sounded like enormous pieces of stone, yanking at her hair as thought it wanted to rip it away.
But she felt no pain.
She opened her eyes, not surprised to find her chin resting on her chest. Her feet were bare; her toes were a bit shorter than she remembered them, her feet daintier. At her ankles started a pair of blue jeans far more tight-fitting than she'd ever worn. Though her Big Middle Sister had made her try on a pair, once, at the general store, just to see what they looked like. Heaven knew her mother would have thrown a fit if she'd seen her in something so inappropriate at that age.
Her shirt was simple white cotton, tucked into the beltless jeans, much more snug than she was used to. When she shifted her hair out of her eyes she felt the pull of a fine chain, and the tug of a pendant beneath the blouse.
Black hair. She had black hair.
She stared at the ends for a moment, then dropped the length back to her shoulders, where the lonely wind tugged it back over her shoulder again.
Where am I?
She took another step, some of the glass sticking weirdly to her skin, and stopped before turning her foot over. The glass was a mixture of clear and inky black, and several shards of it were buried deep. Her blood oozed around the wounds, dyeing the crystals red, or as red as it could in the odd, brown sand. When she put her foot back down she could see more blood, long since dried, across a large piece of the clear glass.
She was walking on glass, and there was no pain.
The glass littered the uneven, sandy ground for several hundred yarz all around her. Brown sand covered some of it, clearly showing the wind was intent on burying the debris. It was having a little less luck with the mountain of it that stretched almost as high as the eye could see, far into the horizon on both sides of her.
She was clearly standing on a road of sorts, the ground was too firm to be merely sand. It was bedrock if nothing else, and a great city had been erected here. Or maybe not a city. The pieces she could make out were not the right shape to be building wreckage, too denticulated and large. But there was too much of it to be a SEEDs ship, not even one as big as –
She stopped again, unable to finish the thought.
Everything was all wrong.
A piece of the wreckage caught her eye, and she followed the odd shape upwards, almost as far as the eye could see, to where it poked jaggedly into a sand sky.
The very clouds were clotted with sand, blotting out anything else. There was too much light for it to be night, even with all five moons visible, but the sand clouds were far too thick for her to find the bright spots that would mark the twin suns. She searched for a moment before a brilliant flash of light arced across her vision, briefly illuminating the ruins before her.
She was staring at what was once a plant.
It was the biggest one, or remnants of, that she'd ever seen. Easily ten times the size of the plant in New Oregon. All that was left was a bit of the base of the internal and external bulbs, and the fixture they attached to.
The glass. That was where it had come from.
She waited patiently for the crash that she knew would have to have accompanied a lighting strike of that magnitude, but her ears heard nothing but the howling wind. It was choked with sand, that was why it felt so hot, and it carried a burnt smell, as though the gusts themselves had been singed by the massive explosions that had forced all that earth into the air. It also carried less identifiable, more offensive odors, and she turned her head sharply to the right as her brain started contemplating what they might have once been.
And then she saw her.
Or maybe it was a him. It was hard to tell; the keening wind was tearing at the long, pale blonde hair as vigorously as it was hers, and the figure was slight. A loose blue shirt billowed around the child's body, not torn despite the coarseness of the air, and thin arms were wrapped around knobby knees.
The child was sitting not fifteen yarz away, in the glass, staring up at the wreckage of the bulb.
She paused, watching that odd blue in this burnt sienna world.
New Oregon.
Where had that name come from? Why did that bulb seem so huge? When had she last seen a bulb like that?
The child didn't move, and as that mop of blonde hair squirmed in the wind, she could periodically make out a round face, wide eyes.
Then it raised a thin arm and wiped at its face. It was a fast, angry motion, and she knew immediately that she was looking at a little boy.
A sad little boy.
She hurried then, grinding the crushed glass into her feet but not caring. It was only a few strides to him, and before she was close enough to touch him he looked up.
Sky-blue eyes, wide with surprise and rimmed with red. They were the first feature she saw. The pale blonde hair framed a very young face, no more than seven or eight. His nose turned up adorably, and his small mouth was slightly open in surprise.
"Don't cry, little one," she heard herself soothe, crouching down beside him so her height didn't intimidate him. There wasn't as much debris there, but she could see various scratches and cuts on his bared legs. He too was barefoot, and he wrapped his arms around his knees as though he were cold.
He looked at her solemnly for a moment, then burst into fresh tears.
"They made him sick!" the little boy wailed. "They made him sick and he's not getting better!"
She frowned sympathetically, resisting the urge to wrap the little boy in her arms. His motion had been angry, and she knew better than to wrestle with a distraught little boy.
. . . why? Why did she know how to deal with little boys?
Why couldn't she remember?
"They're going to do the same to me," the boy stated miserably. He turned away from her and resumed looking up. Looking at the bulb.
She followed his gaze, staring into the sandy sky, waiting for another flash of lightning. It didn't take long; there were so many particulates in the air already dry from the explosions that a tremendous amount of static was building up. It illuminated the wrecked bulb, the source of all the glass, the center of the mountain of wreckage.
Another bolt immediately followed the first, crawling between clouds and giving them several seconds of unbroken light. The bottom of the internal bulb, the dark glass, was still intact. Almost like a little bed, stretching out into nothing. It had to have been a trick of the light, but it looked as though there were a figure cradled in the curve of it-
Another little boy?
"No, no they won't." She put a gentle hand on the blonde boy's shoulder, causing him to flinch. "I'll keep you safe."
"You said that before!" the child screamed, yanking himself away from her touch so that he was sprawled, facing her. A few rocks scattered at his sudden movement. His hands dug into the sand beneath him, and his eyes were full of accusation and betrayal. "You said you'd keep us safe, Rem! You said you wouldn't let them hurt us!"
She hesitated before his sudden fury, her hand still outstretched, and the boy slunk to his feet before her. "You said we'd be safe!" he repeated, but some of the anger had subsided. "You said you'd take care of us."
Did she? Had she made such a promise? She looked back towards the bulb, but there wasn't enough light to see by.
Had she let something horrible happen to a child?
She bit her lip, bringing her gaze back to the little boy. Only he wasn't so little, anymore. He was older, maybe fourteen. The soft blue cloth was gone, replaced by a crimson and white suit that fit him snuggly. His face was much more angular, his hair much shorter and somehow paler. The look he gave her was not surprise and horror, but calculating.
"Of course, I suppose I prevented you, didn't I," he said softly, in a slightly deeper voice. "It was your mistake, but I created the situation. I didn't . . . I didn't consider every angle."
He stood before her proudly, much straighter than any fourteen year old had the right to hold himself. The wind wasn't able to get as good a grasp on him, it seemed to slink by apologetically even as it ripped at her blouse, twining through her ebony hair.
He looked so familiar to her . . .
"I didn't mean to kill you," he said, as if by way of explanation. "I engineered everything so that you'd be in the pod with us. I didn't . . . think you'd leave us. Leave him."
She blinked at him, then back at the bulb. Had she left him somewhere? Had she abandoned them? Was there a little boy trapped in that fragile glass, about to fall?
The older boy followed her gaze. "I can't reach him in there." His voice was no less miserable than the younger boy's had been. "I can't help him, Rem. I can't get to him."
He was right; she could see immediately that he was too small. The detritus and rubble that made up the first wall were far too tall for the boy to climb. Though he seemed lithe and athletic, he simply lacked the reach. All of the small pieces of junk were too sharp or not stable enough to be used to climb. And even past the first barricade were a dozen others, a veritable, jaggy collection of impassable cliffs too sharp to traverse.
"Is he alive?" She wouldn't have just left him there. She wouldn't have.
The older boy gave her a considering look. "I think so," he mumbled after a moment. "It's hard for me to tell. I don't feel so good." He looked a little surprised at the last admission.
Two arms of electricity reached out from the cloud directly above the bulb, and there was no doubt that the easy curve of what had once been a bulb cradled a figure, a larger figure than the boy beside her.
Could she reach him? Had she truly abandoned them? Had she left them both to die in this terrible burnt world?
"But isn't this the same choice?"
She stared at the boy, taken aback.
He didn't seem to notice her reaction. "It's a choice between saving us or saving them. There's no pod this time, Rem. You can't save both. You tried, and you put that stupid idea into his head because you got lucky. But this is different. They're killing us, Rem. You'll chose them over us again, won't you."
He kept calling her Rem. And it felt . . . wrong. It felt all wrong.
She would never choose to sacrifice children. Not even in a world like this.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms tightly around the hardened figure in front of her. "Never," she whispered fiercely. "I'll never let them kill you. Either of you."
He held himself stiffly away from her, but she rested her head against his and gradually he relaxed slightly. Hesitantly he put his arms around her, and she hugged him tighter.
"You left us," he spoke into her shoulder, so that it was muffled.
"No," she told him, just as fiercely. And she knew it was true. "Whatever happened, it doesn't matter anymore. We need to go. We'll go and get him together."
He shuddered in her arms, and his voice was shaking when he replied. " . . . I think he's dying, Rem . . ."
She squeezed him once more, then released him and pushed him back until she could look into his face. He was trying very hard not to cry, and she was certain he was doing a better job of it than she was. This, this one thing in this whole terrible world, felt right.
"Then we better hurry."
- . -
Meryl shook her head vigorously, dislodging the excess water before running the towel over her hair again. She was glad, for the umpteenth time, that it was short. It allowed her to go from jumping in the shower to professionally dressed in less than ten minutes.
This time it had taken her much closer to fifteen, since she'd been particularly filthy. Enough that the two young men that had gone into Millie's room had all but chased her out, citing her hygiene as much as her exhaustion as a reason for her to go to her quarters. They had promised to notify her the second there was a change, but of course she hadn't believed them.
Which was why, after taking a two hour nap that had suddenly become seven, she was concerned about those extra five minutes. Millie had been asleep since the attack, which had been, now, thirteen hours ago. Surely, even if she'd been as tired as Meryl had been, she'd wake up soon.
And she wanted to be there.
They'd taken her Bernadelli uniform, which she'd known they would, and a small part of her hoped they'd incinerated it. They'd then provided her with the light grey uniform of a civilian, she guessed, or at least not the dark grey of an officer or the white of a technician. It didn't look quite like the commander's, so she assumed it meant she was a civilian.
It wasn't a prison uniform, at any rate.
Probably.
A glance in the mirror showed a petite, bright-eyed woman in fetching black hair, sporting two silver earrings that oddly matched a light grey jacket. Beneath it was a light grey tanktop that seemed made of soft cotton, and the slacks weren't terribly uncomfortable. She was pretty sure it had been cut for a male officer, judging by the way the bust of the jacket fit as well as the crotch of the trousers, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
They were still being kind, almost reverent, to her. It unnerved her more than she could say.
Meryl stepped out into the main suite, sitting on the low bed to step into the matching boots. They were a little large, but not terribly so, and she stomped both her feet to make sure she'd slipped them on completely.
"You sound just like our honor guard," an amused voice observed, and Meryl yelped. She was also pretty sure she jumped about three feet into the air.
The door to the main hall was open, and the familiar shape of Private Asoaurd leaned on the frame casually. He held up a placating hand.
"Easy there, Ms. Stryfe. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you saw me when you came out of the washroom."
She hid her surprise with a scowl. "Don't you think I would have said something to you if I'd seen you standing there?"
His smile was wide. "Not really, ma'am," he admitted. "I get the feeling I'm not your favorite person around here."
She stared at him a second before she shook her head. "A few people have you beaten out on that position." She glanced around, feeling oddly bare without a notepad or a suitcase to take with her. There was no need; everything she needed was still in Millie's room. Namely, Millie.
"Is Millie okay?" Heavens, why hadn't that been the first thing out of her mouth-
He began to nod, then stopped himself, and pulled out the familiar, tiny grey computer from its pouch on his belt. He tapped a stylus against the monitor a few times, and a few clicks were heard.
"She's stable," he confirmed, then turned the screen so she could see it. Grudgingly, she came closer, and was surprised to see a moving square about three-quarters of the size of the entire display, an over-the-bed view of Millie. A white-coated technician was fussing by the bedside, and while the resolution wasn't great, she could make out what looked like wires stretching to small, white circles on Millie's forehead and temples.
"It looks like they're still running tests," he added unnecessarily.
"Is that . . . happening right now?"
He nodded. "This is real-time," he agreed, then smiled again. "Forgive me. I forget that this technology seems foreign to civilians."
She could have interpreted it as a slam on her intelligence, but thought better of it. This was probably actually a ploy to suck up to her in an effort to get her assistance with their plans. Why else would the commander's personal assistant get Meryl babysitting duty?
There was no doubt that was what it was. She'd tried briefly to leave her room about thirty minutes after she'd been locked inside, only to find that not only was it locked, but when she started trying to tinker with the odd, flat metallic panel beside the door, it opened to reveal a very polite guard who asked her in no uncertain terms to stop.
She wondered, a little cattily, if Elizabeth was being restricted as much as she was.
Probably not.
He was watching her, and she wondered how much her expression had changed as he withdrew the computer. "We're – none of us – uh, look. I'm bad at this. I'm . . . I'm sorry Ms. Thompson got hurt. We all are."
She just nodded, not meeting his eyes, and he used the silence to tuck the computer back into its holster. "I understand you'll be wanting to head back to the med bay now?"
"Yes." She remained where she was until he stepped back, out of the doorway, and then her mouth just started. She hated awkward silences. They always ended up being filled with something much worse.
"So why did you get stuck with me? Does your commander need something else?"
He began to walk beside her as she turned left, now more than familiar with the layout between her quarters and the infirmary. There weren't too many places between the two for her to get lost, after all. Two stairwells, one major intersection, and she was there. A quick two-minute walk that showed her almost nothing of the ship, of the size of it and the number of people that moved about every day, performing their tasks.
As they had been when she'd last been here.
Terry had the good grace to stop smiling so widely. "Actually, I volunteered," he admitted. "It's not every day I get to walk down the hall with a legend. Well, one like yourself," he added hastily. "Not to say the commander isn't a legend, he's just . . . uh . . ." He trailed off, then scratched his head. "Oh boy," he finally concluded.
Any other day, Meryl might have found his behavior cute. Men didn't generally get shy around her, unless she was pointing a gun at them or barging into an office on official business.
But this was not any other day. This was yet another day of being a prisoner on a ship full of people that probably had actual memories of Earth and had still, stupidly and closemindedly done something so horrible-
"I don't get it," she started, noting the anger in her voice and forcing it away. She missed the numbness she'd had before, the exhaustion. Now all she had for company was an aching face and a growing indignation. And taking it out on the commander's assistant wasn't going to help anyone, least of all her. The last thing she needed to do was risk her 'privilege' of being able to visit Millie.
"Why am I such a legend? For writing a few reports?" For telling them exactly how to bring down Vash the Stampede? Her stomach iced with the thought that something in her reports had made their job easier.
She liked to think he put up a fight. Tried to defend his promise and save humanity.
The young man beside her cleared his throat. "You're a twenty-something, uh, petite woman who volunteered to track down and follow the most dangerous thing on the planet. You did it for years, even seeing with your own eyes what it could do-"
"It," she grated through clenched teeth, stopping dead in her tracks, "is a he. He is a person, like you or me, and what you've done is just as unacceptable as if you'd done it to me."
The private held up a hand. "I don't disagree with you," he said in a hushed tone, glancing up the hall. "But you have to understand – look. You . . . you have had personal interaction, for years, with a walking, talking Plant. Possibly one of the only people in history that has done so."
He indicated with an outstretched arm that they should continue walking, and Meryl didn't budge.
He grimaced, and clasped his hands in front of him placatingly. "You just asked me why you're considered such a legend, and I'm telling you. Whether you want to be or not, you're famous. You partially documented 'a day in the life of' a humanoid Plant. One that interacted with humans, like a human. You got to watch that interaction. Do you understand now?"
She just stared at him, not paying the few wide-eyed passersby any attention. "Why would that matter?" she asked bluntly. "No one here seems to care that Vash is as human if not more so than anyone else on the ship!"
He shook his head. "Not when either of the known Plants could wipe out half the planet without trying, no," he agreed, and again gestured that they should walk. This time she did.
"The commander designed the plan he did to protect the civilians. We all agreed to be put at that risk in their stead, so naturally tension is high currently. A lot of good men died."
She bit back her retort and continued walking. That was true. She'd been sitting in that room with him, watching dots blink out.
"When everything settles, there will be interest in the humanoid Plants as . . . well, as humanoid," he continued. "Just not yet. Not until Knives is in a bulb, and the twin has stabilized."
So Vash wasn't okay.
"So currently my celebrity status is as a spy for the humans." It made her feel fouler than she had before she'd taken a shower.
He winced, but didn't contradict her, and she resisted the urge to grind her teeth.
"Trust me," he said softly, "when I tell you that what happened to – to Vash the Stampede is by far the most merciful any enemy has ever been treated by the commander."
Meryl ducked down the narrow flight of stairs, listening to the softer clattering of Terry behind her. Merciful! How could be being put into a torture device be considered merciful?
"And on that note," he continued in a low voice, "I would continue to stay out of his way, if I were you."
So that was why he'd been elected to escort her to the infirmary. To pass on the commander's wish that she stop being a pain in his ass.
There was nothing to say to that, so she didn't. She continued down the next flight of stairs. Once they reached the landing, she heard the younger man sigh.
"Like I said, I'm bad at this."
She appreciated the honesty, but she wasn't too interested in making him feel better about it.
"So tell me about this commander of yours, if torturing people is his idea of merciful."
Terry smiled a little. "Well, he's the only officer on board that saw combat on Earth."
Meryl digested that for a moment. That was impossible; he didn't look much over his mid-fifties. The last major war on Earth had ended at least thirty years before the SEEDs project, so . . .
"He was included in the SEEDs project on the off chance we ended up on a planet with a population of its own, or there was a world-encompassing military-related disaster." Terry didn't seem to notice her confusion. "Naturally, the discovery of two conscious Plants capable of wiping out one of the major settlements without blinking an eye was concluded to be a world-encompassing disaster, so he was woken about seven months ago."
Cold-sleep. He'd been in cold-sleep the entire time. He'd been aware and living on Gunsmoke for the equivalent of seven months. And she recalled from her earlier conversation with Bryan that most of the crew had been in cold-sleep themselves until about two years ago, when they'd come parading through . . .
"The commander likes efficiency." Terry said it as though trying hard to communicate it wasn't a negative thing. "I think we can both agree this was not the most efficient way to deal with the problem of the Plants."
"The problem of the Plants," she echoed, shaking her head. "If you'd left them alone there wouldn't have been a problem."
"If we'd killed them, there wouldn't have been one either," he pointed out.
"You are killing them," she retorted. "We all know what happens in plants. Sooner or later there'll be a Last Run, and I have yet to see a Plant that survived that!"
He sighed again. "I don't know why I try," he muttered, mostly to himself. "I'm trying to point out that usually the science angle wouldn't have been enough to make the commander go through this elaborate and expensive plan to capture them alive."
"So what?" They were only a few dozen yarz from the infirmary now, and she had never been so glad to see it. Silence would have been better than this.
He shook his head slightly. "You asked me to tell you about the commander. That's what I'm doing."
Meryl stopped her next snap, but only after she'd opened her mouth. She had, hadn't she. "Oh," she managed lamely. "Well, thanks then."
They continued the next few yarz in silence, then Terry put a hand on her arm, stopping them. There was no one in the hallway besides them, no real reason to stop. She started to jerk her arm away when his grip tightened.
He tried a smile, though this one was forced. "I'm a coward," he growled under his breath, before meeting her eyes squarely. "Let me try this another way. Commander Gray is dangerous. He will kill you and your entire party if you prove to be more trouble than you're worth. You have some advantages – you're an in with Bernardelli without us having to go public. Miss Boulaise is a way to get our engineers quietly involved in the Plant restoration projects as well. But you're not necessary. Do you understand?"
She stared at him, noting for the first time that his eyes were hazel. She'd never really looked at him, considered him as anything more than a lackey.
Which is what he is, her brain cautioned her. All he's doing is trying to scare you.
"Why? Why tell me this?"
He rolled his eyes. "Because you're Meryl Stryfe, you idiot," he murmured. "You don't sit quietly. You act on what you believe in, and you've very stupidly made it plain to everyone that you believe Vash the Stampede should be released."
She would have chafed at the insults if she weren't as stunned by the words that followed it.
"You don't know me-"
"You're wrong. Who do you think summarized all those reports?" He glanced up and down the hall, then at his hand, still holding her arm. "I was here, when you first came. I still have the footage, every clip of video we could get on you four. Most of our Prime BEEF carries a picture of you in their wallets. And Ms. Thompson," he added, "since she did cause 'em to take out almost the entire section of that hallway to repair the hole she punched through it."
She stared at him, and he shook his head. "Look, it doesn't matter. Just . . . just don't do anything stupid, okay? You – just, for once, please consider doing what the commander asks you to. For their sake."
Their sake. Not just Elizabeth's, but Millie and Aaron and Sunjy's.
She hadn't seen them since they were separated for 'interviews.'
Meryl shifted slightly away from Terry, and he released her arm as though it had shocked him. "So, I just thought you should know," he said lamely.
She nodded. "Where are Aaron and Sunjy – Elizabeth's bodyguards. Are they okay?"
He frowned at her. "They're fine. Ms. Boulaise has had them released on her authority, and they're assisting her with the logistical end of things."
So the commander hadn't had them killed, at any rate.
It was just hard to believe that the man that had leaned across the table from her, asking her to sign the disclosure agreement, would be as evil as all that –
But his expression, when Knives had been hurting Millie –
But he was a military leader. They couldn't have sent anyone in, they would have been incapacitated and besides, some of the gas would have gotten out. It was most important at that point to stop Knives.
And, following that logic, it would be most important to keep Vash and Knives locked up, even if a short black-haired woman thought differently.
"I should go and see Millie-"
He nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you-"
"No, I . . . thanks. For the warning."
He nodded, and started walking again.
She wondered if he had a picture of her in his wallet, too. The idea that there was an entire corps of engineers walking around with Millie's face, to remind them of who caused them probably weeks' worth of work for one little hole –
Meryl hurried after Terry, biting her bottom lip. "Can – can I ask you for a favor?"
- . -
Samuel handed her a printout, but she barely glanced at it. She'd been observing this 'Doc' for some time, and there was much to be said for his penchant of looking at the patient instead of the machine.
She didn't need the computers to tell her the cocktail of drugs weren't having the effect she wanted, after all. One glance at the struggling Plant was enough.
Erratic pulse, uncontrollable fever, respiratory distress. Obvious rejection of the inhibitors. That could be one of many problems, anything from its system building up an immunity to the chemical bonding to its body returning to what Dr. Greer called 'the natural form.'
Not that she agreed with the crackpot, but unfortunately, G-101A was still emitting significant amounts of energy at unpredictable intervals. Most bursts were only a second or two in duration, and none of them dangerous enough to damage the room. Just the more sensitive equipment and the humans that happened to be in the room at the time. And a few seconds' exposure at those levels would hardly be terminal.
'Doc' was well aware of it and didn't seem to mind, after all.
Then again, he'd lived out his days. He'd exhausted most of his research into bio-engineering and he had an emotional attachment to the Plant. She was counting on his sentimentalism to keep him playing ball until the Plant either died or stabilized.
Not that her research was going much better. She'd taken any number of tissue samples from the ailing Plant, all interesting but none pointing her in the direction of the normally spawned Plant. Most non-humanoid Plants bore a specific genetic marker identifying offspring to parent, much like all hybrid clone DNA. G-101A's mappings didn't reflect what they had on record for any of the Plants aboard the primary SEEDs ship. It was unique, which made it more mammalian.
Slightly more disturbing, the Plant did indeed have testes, which were indeed producing sperm. While A-20034 had ovaries, of a sort, that also produced what they could assume were egg cells, scientists on Earth had tried years before the project to combine them successfully with various engineered sperm cells and failed.
The next obvious test, of course, was to see if this Plant's sperm could successfully fertilize another Plant's egg cells, but she'd yet to combine them. That was an experiment for another time, fraught with problems such as, if the fertilization was successful, where to put the embryo? None of the Plants had had the equivalent of a uterus, as they often developed limbs or wings from tiny sacs beneath the skin rather than a central spawning location.
And Cherubs were not spawned from other Plants, but from the central Plant. Implanting a fertilized cell into the skin of a Plant and expecting a successful pregnancy was ludicrous.
Just the sort of thing 'Doc' would suggest.
Perhaps what irritated her most about him was the fact that she didn't know his name. She glanced up at the monitor, surprised to see the surface of the black stool rather than a hunched back. The Plant looked the same, unaware of the man's absence, and she thinned her lips.
Where was he?
Her main office held an examination bed, her most used equipment, and a small computer bank. She had only six monitors, and currently four of them were programmed with video feed from various rooms. Obviously the twin Plants were on the primary screens, and the color monitors showed that both of those observation rooms were empty of humans. Within G-101B's room, there was no need. That Plant was responding optimally to chemical therapy and soon Dr. Greer would be commandeering the treatment to begin installation.
There was no one in G-101A's room because she had wanted to respect Doc's privacy, but if he was going to wander off without so much as notifying her –
An irritated peek at Millie Thompson's room revealed him, however, and she frowned. More interest in the vegetable? It was a damned shame, but not even surgery would improve her symptoms. She would regain consciousness, probably in the next hour or so, and they'd get a baseline of the damage. Best case would be clumsy blundering and unintelligible chatter. As soon as the woman began moving in earnest, some of that clotted blood would be forced into the main blood vessels of her brain, and her condition would rapidly deteriorate into a series of small strokes, culminating in respiratory paralysis and death.
A day, a week, a year. It wouldn't make any difference. There was nothing they, for all their technology, could do for that kind of trauma. What made it curious was that it was the first time she'd seen that sort of damage without the secondary injuries to the tissues of the brain. Most trauma came from the surface downward, not the other way around.
Motion on that monitor sharpened her gaze, and she watched Private Asoaurd escort Meryl Stryfe back into the room. She adjusted her glasses and sighed. Someone needed to break the bad news to her, at any rate, and she doubted it would be 'Doc.'
Then again . . . they did have a prior relationship, didn't they? Hadn't the woman negotiated an insurance contract or something . . .? Perhaps their love of Plant G-101A facilitated the feelings of a bond.
Curiosity got the better of her, and Dr. Shrew touched the audio button beneath the monitor.
"Meryl Stryfe," Doc greeted, and the diminutive woman gave him a brief hug. Yes, definitely a prior relationship.
"Doc," she responded, and released him promptly. "How is she?"
The two shapes proceeded towards the bed, where Millie Thompson lay. Her readings were scrolling on the very bottom of the monitor, and her eyes glanced over them quickly. Just on the cusp of consciousness. It wouldn't be long. He didn't have much time to give the girl fair warning.
"I'm afraid I don't have good news."
He also, apparently, cut right to the chase. She'd seen little of his bedside manner, and propped her chin on her hands. As always, observing him was educational.
The small woman's shoulders were slightly hunched upwards, a sign of her anxiety, but it was the only one. Her voice was very steady when she responded to him.
"I know. Just tell me."
He chose to stand beside her, and just behind, watching the tall girl as he spoke. "Ms. Thompson will regain consciousness, but she won't be herself."
That was an understatement.
"The damage done by Knives will affect her motor skills, to some extent. You may observe twitching, strange gestures, or a difficulty or harshness in speaking."
The black-haired woman didn't move. "Will she understand us?"
The shape of Doc sighed. "That's difficult to say," he admitted. "I think so."
Meryl stroked Ms. Thompson's arm through the blankets. "I think so too."
Samuel moved behind her, and Dr. Shrew glanced his way, still keeping an ear cocked to the screen. Doc began to explain the mindless babbling Thompson would probably lapse into.
"What?" Dr. Shrew asked sharply, when her technician failed to speak.
"The readings on G-101A are a bit abnormal –"
She refocused on the Plant. Due to the uncontrollable spasms, the Plant had been secured to the flat, padded table, but it had not been so tightly bound it could not move at all. Occasionally its head would turn slightly, but it was difficult to tell if this indicated a growing awareness or not. As with Thompson, the primary stats displayed on a bar along the bottom of the screen, and she noted the change in energy output. A littler lower-key, but surprisingly consistent. Not alarming, at least not yet, but definitely a new symptom. She'd been lowering the inhibiting dose, in the hopes it would have a change on the obvious internal issues the Plant was suffering from, so perhaps this would tell her if she was on the right track.
"Ms. Stryfe?"
Dr. Shrew looked back towards Thompson's room, in time to see the diminutive woman say, "Call me Meryl."
Maybe not so much of a history after all.
"I assume you'll want to stay by her side throughout the rest of your time here as a soldier in the commander's war."
Ah, pushing his agenda. Hoping to find a confederate in her? She toyed with recording the conversation, but something stayed her hand. The two of them could do little to change their situation, after all, and there was no need to bring such a trifling, expected sort of conversation to the commander's attention.
Behind her, she heard Sam shift again, and she shook her head. "Thank you. I'll monitor the patient from here."
He left her office almost silently, and she wondered how often her assistants used their starched, rustling coats to announce themselves instead of a gentle throat-clearing.
"If she starts repeating the same sound over and over again, there's a good chance of a stroke due to the clots in her brain dislodging and cutting off circulation to other parts," Doc was continuing his lecture. She felt an eyebrow crawl towards her hairline. That was surprisingly blunt. Stryfe wasn't an idiot. He'd all but told her that her friend wasn't going to live very long.
He continued, something about Thompson being able to process simple commands, but she ignored them, looking again towards the Plants. The energy reading she was seeing seemed to be steady, and that was a problem.
Steady output meant she needed to up the inhibitors again. Upping the inhibitors again meant further damage to its internal systems as the partially altered internal organs fought with its more humanoid physiology. She was almost certain that was the reason for its distress, but again, until they stopped the energy purge there would be no way to be certain, and certainly no treatment.
G-101A was not going to withstand much more hesitation on her part.
Dr. Shrew withdrew her PDA, then thought better of it, and stood. Doc was still describing warning signs, and Stryfe was still paying him close attention. With a shake of her head, she withdrew from her office, walking briskly down the hall, up the eight stairs to the observation deck.
It was a raised chamber of sorts that offered a mid-room view of the two Plant theaters. It hadn't been built for the Plants, of course; its primary purpose had been to allow the overlooking of more doctors during the performance of a critical or complex medical procedure. The room had been altered, however, about a month before the capture of G-101A. The glass had been doubled with bulb polymer and the walls pressure-filled with reactor insulation.
She was hoping that precaution would ultimately prove totally unnecessary. Since G-101A was sedated and in such bad condition, it was impossible for the Plant to emit a serious enough burst of energy to compromise the room, but she'd really rather not give it the opportunity.
Samuel and Candice were in the observation deck, gathering the data they'd probably use to write their dissertations. They both nodded respectfully, and she ignored them, striding purposefully over to the main console and seating herself with a sigh. There were more monitors here, and better scanning equipment. The Plant's blood gases were completely out of whack, which might explain the respiratory issues. The Plant was averaging at over a hundred breaths per minute, despite the oxygen line run to it.
That rate would quickly exhaust the average human, and this Plant had been keeping it up steadily for nearly an hour now. She knew it was distressing Doc, but outside of continuing to feed the Plant oxygen there was little they could do to combat it. Its throat and chest sounded clear. It was the Plant's lungs that were causing the trouble, and without the aid of her scanning equipment, which the energy fluctuations would permanently damage, or exploratory surgery, which would kill the Plant outright, there was no way to treat.
Her one and only chance to study humanoid Plants close-up was quickly coming to a close. Perhaps if they'd done a better job with the drug manipulations, or she hadn't allowed Dr. Greer such leeway during the installation . . . She glanced at the readings again, noting a parallel increase in brain activity. Of course, with the inhibitors slowly leaving its system up to this point, total chemical sedation was relaxing.
She located the appropriate monitor, in this case number seven, and flicked the intercom button on Thompson's monitor. "Return to the observation deck," she said clearly, then flicked it off again before remembering that Doc wasn't one of her assistants.
Oh well. He'd just chalk it up to her demeanor. Even if she treated him with respect she received the same lack of it in return.
Then she turned to the keyboard, entering her password and sending a command to the mechanical pump in the room. A 10 cc dose of inhibitor probably wouldn't have too significant an impact, given the Plant's waning reaction to the chemical, but it might be enough to disrupt that consistent energy release.
She watched the electric meters on the pump. It wasn't the same as walking into the Plant's room and administering it in person, but there was no reason to put anyone in that much danger. The current system meant they could administer stimulants, sedatives, inhibitors, or painkillers with the tap of a stylus, from anywhere in the ship. Also, the pump itself was pneumonic, almost completely mechanical. Even if the Plant knocked out wireless communication, they could still use this terminal, which was hard-wired through the floors to the equipment.
The machine worked flawlessly, releasing the correct dosage down one of the two IV lines that had been run into the Plant before continuing with its saline drip. Hydration had a direct correlation to the health of a Plant outside of the bulb, and this one was still dehydrated. The readings didn't change significantly, but she'd indicated a very low dose.
The energy output remained steady. Low enough not to be a threat, but steady for the first time since extraction. Respiration remained distressed, and total brain activity neither dipped nor spiked.
She also noticed, with no small trace of irritation, that rather than coming to her, the man had gone directly to the Plant.
Of course. Why look at a monitor when you could observe the patient with your eyes?
She growled, grabbing her PDA and heading out the door. She half-jogged down the short stairway, hanging a left and waiting impatiently for the doors to admit her. The energy levels weren't dangerous enough to warrant caution, yet.
Lucky for that idiot.
"I see you follow directions quite well," she murmured acidly as she walked up to him. He was inspecting the Plant quite closely, as though the pores of its skin might hold some mystery.
"You gave him more inhibitors, didn't you."
She blinked at the accusatory tone, but showed him her PDA. "Yes. As this is not a bulb environment, I thought it prudent to prevent energy release."
He looked over the data, for once, and uncharacteristically growled under his breath.
"When did that start?"
"About three minutes ago. The inhibitors we applied will be sufficient to prevent large scale energy release-"
"That's not the problem," he said, in an oddly quiet voice, and turned back to the Plant. He pulled down an eyelid, and his shoulders squared. "You need to leave the room, doctor."
She stared at him. "Excuse me?"
Dr. Shrew almost jumped when he whirled to face her, one hand wrapped around her wrist. She barely kept hold of the PDA, and he began to propel her backwards. "Now would be better than later," he said briskly.
She managed to stop her backwards momentum after a moment, and she heard the doors slide open behind her. Her assistants would likely have seen this, and of course it meant they'd call security, he'd just further restricted his own movements-
"What-"
"You need to leave. It's not safe."
His somber expression started to worry her, but it was still no excuse to manhandle her. Dr. Shrew yanked hard against him, but he didn't release her wrist.
"Let go of me! How dare you-"
"It's a steady output because he's coming around," Doc murmured, still in a very calm voice. A voice one might use around children. "Now get out, and seal the doors. Please."
She was about to question his diagnosis when the Plant articulated something. It wasn't intelligible, but it was clearly more than the groans it had emitted in the past. If the Plant wasn't semi-conscious, it was well on its way. Curiously, it still sounded as though it had multiple sets of vocal chords, the sound was much like those of recorded Plant songs.
She was right. Despite its outward appearance, the Plant was still very much less than humanoid.
Doc left her at the door, turning back for the Plant, and she was about to follow him when the quarantine alarm began to sound.
They'd designed the rooms to flood with gas, for just such a situation as this. Once a certain number of sensors lost contact with the main security system, as they would do in the presence of certain energy levels, the protocol would go into effect. The gas was not intended to sedate, but to kill. The infirmary was rather central to the ship, and should a serious breach occur, possible peripheral damage could be devastating.
They had ten seconds before the doors sealed them in.
Ten seconds before they died with the Plant.
Dr. Shrew started forward and grabbed at Doc with her left hand. As she pulled him around, she could see past him, see the Plant's arm raise slightly.
Testing its bonds.
Oh, god. He was right.
"We have eight seconds." She didn't bother keeping her voice gentle, and his was quite firm when he replied.
"Then stop this. He's not a threat to the ship." He seemed to fall back, freeing himself from her grasp easily.
Wirelessly stopping the quarantine was doable, but in the room at least, was out of the question. He'd just demonstrated that he was physically stronger than she was, so pulling him out of the room was also out of the question. She hesitated before dashing outside, pressing her back to the theater wall. The insulation protected her PDA from the energy, and she watched the screen flash as the device rebooted.
Four seconds.
It came back up as quickly as it always did, thankfully directly to the alert. She entered her four digit pin with zero seconds to spare, waiting for the overhead claxon to stop before daring to look back inside.
The alarms indicating dangerous energy levels were still ringing with their high-pitched clink, but unfortunately they didn't give her any idea of the levels themselves. As soon as she approached the open doors her PDA began to show only static, and she tossed it aside in disgust before walking back into the theater.
She had stopped the quarantine. Neutralizing the Plant was now her responsibility, and hers alone.
The Plant was still on the table, still restrained. Doc was leaning over it, his hands on either side of the Plant's face. Forcing it to look at him. Were its eyes open?
"Vash, stop,"
She hurried around him, to the drawers built into the table. Motion caught her attention, from the observation window, and she ignored their frantic waving. Radiation poisoning, even Plant-generated, was not untreatable if the dosage was low enough. And she had a clear view of the Plant from her vantage – it wasn't even glowing.
It was slicked with sweat, shaking its head weakly against the smaller man's hands. She clearly heard the sound of popping nylon thread, which she guessed was the restraint around its intact arm. If it was strong enough to break the canvas -
"Get G-101B out of here!" she shouted at the glass, knowing the four-man security detail Sam had undoubtedly already summoned would obey him. The other Plant was in a coma, after all. Despite being the more dangerous personality, right now it was the least of their concerns. There was no choice with this one, but at least she could save the other.
The Plant cried out again, shaking its head more vigorously, but Doc hung on grimly. "Stop, Vash," he begged. "Look at me-"
It clearly wasn't positively reacting to Doc. Either it was too dazed to recognize him or it simply didn't care.
She pulled the mechanical pump to her, checking the label twice before punching the release valve on the arixtor. A full fifty cc's remained in the cylinder, and it drained into the Plant without incident.
That was the last of the inhibitors. Everything else they'd prestocked into the pump was a stimulant, a painkiller, or a sedative. She hesitated only a moment more before she hit the valve on the sitosterin as well.
"Vash, can you hear me?"
She could see that its eyes were open, but they were heavily glazed, and white around the edges. The Plant's expression was frightened, there was no real coordination to its movements. Only semi-conscious. Nothing like it had been when they'd first began inhibitor testing -
The sound of tearing cloth was her only warning before Doc was almost launched over the table. She jumped back, horrified to see a flash of white feathers rather than bandages as it tore its arm free. The Plant cried out again, as though in pain, and reached elongated fingers to grab the falling Doc's right wrist.
It jerked him to a halt, and Doc didn't try to pull away, now half-seated on the table with the Plant. He returned his left hand to the Plant's face, gently, and stifled a cough.
"Look at me."
The fingers coiled around his wrist, tightening until she could hear the bones creak. Neither the arixtor nor the sitosterin seemed to be having any effect.
Dr. Shrew remained frozen, worried that any motion from her would further endanger the man, but after a moment it became apparent that the Plant was at least reacting intelligently. It was struggling less, and seemed to be actually looking at Doc.
"It's okay, Vash." He said it reassuringly, it wasn't a croon but it would have put the most anxious person almost immediately at ease. Given the pain he was in, it was nothing short of remarkable. "You're going to be fine. Go back to sleep."
He was doing an admirable job of distracting the Plant from her. She eyed it only a second more before she eased forward, ducking beneath its line of sight and softly pulling open the lowermost drawers of the table.
She quickly located the cylinder of lupetin and a wide-bore syringe, and drew twenty cc's, more than twice the necessary dose. Their exposure to the energy was accruing with every second the Plant remained conscious, and while she didn't yet feel light-headed, she knew it was only a matter of time. The alarm lights were still flashing, indicating radiation levels hadn't dropped despite the inhibitors, and the milder sedatives didn't seem to be weakening the Plant at all.
She didn't even have to stand to locate one of the IV lines, and she slipped the needle through the polymer. Stronger sedatives on top of what she'd just given the Plant were ill-advised. The dose might actually euthanize the Plant. She administered it anyway.
Then she straightened.
The effect of the lupetin was immediate. The Plant's still-elevated respiration dropped startlingly in the middle of a gasp, like water pressure when you turned off the hosepipe. Its mouth widened in such a classic Plant expression she might have thought it was continuing to return to that form, and it made a low, desperate sound.
The accompanying, slight convulsions began immediately, and she leaned forward, trying to catch the Plant's hand in an attempt to free Doc. He pushed her aside with his other arm, roughly, and his voice was tight.
"Don't touch him!"
She stumbled backwards, tripping over the mechanical pump, and by the time she caught herself, it was over.
The first thing she noticed was the silence. The alarms had stopped. Doc was gasping, still in the grasp of the limp Plant. Its eyes were slightly open, and seemed to flick sluggishly before they fell closed. A dark stream of urine trickled from the end of the table to spatter against the theater floor.
She sighed deeply, fighting the impression that she'd been holding her breath the entire time. Doc swallowed loudly, turned to her, and grimaced.
"Thank you," he said, as lightly as he could, before half-collapsing against the slumbering Plant.
She let her tart response go, hurrying back to the table. The Plant still had the other doctor's right wrist firmly in grasp, and as she moved to peel off the slender fingers, she saw the blisters.
His entire arm was burned from fingertips to elbow, and the sleeve of his jacket was partially blackened.
It wasn't her first burn, so the sudden acrid stench and the sight of the fast-forming lesions didn't surprise her. There were documented cases of Plant technicians not following safety protocols and being burned by a production Plant, and being successfully treated.
Still, his arm was probably long past skin grafts.
And that was just his arm. The rest of him had been exposed to that energy, to a lesser extent.
And so had she.
She continued to extricate the quietly moaning Doc from the Plant, glancing at the door as it hissed open. Three wide-eyed doctors and two gurneys were staring back.
"Get an operating theater prepped," she ordered, and was slightly gratified to see one of them – Candice, it looked like – scurry off. Sam was missing, which meant he'd obeyed her command to move Knives. She'd need to be checked herself for lesions, but it looked as though only the skin he'd had in direct contact with the Plant was badly damaged.
What a nightmare.
The Plant's fingers stuck wetly to Doc's skin, and once she was able to completely free him she moved to the other side of the table. By then the other two had entered, and took him gently from her.
"Doctor . . . our readings spiked at point five."
Wonderful. Not a lethal dose, but darn close to damaging. She nodded absently, checking the Plant's vitals the old-fashioned way. Weak pulse, but slightly less erratic. Relaxed respiration.
And it wasn't in a coma.
She stared at the Plant a moment before following the gurney out of the room. Assuming it was still in that condition when she was finished researching burn treatments, it might just be stable.
- . -
Author's Note: Not much to say, actually, other than this being the sequel to Compromise, all rules stated in that story for telepathic communication stand. Anything that seemed unclear in the beginning will be made quite clear probably in the next few chapters or so. As always, if you spot something wonky, please let me know! I had to stop this chapter right about in the middle, so the question of Millie will be answered in the next chapter, which is really the end of this one. It was just getting out of hand.
Thank you guys for reading this far. I really didn't intend this to be so long, or so complicated, but . . . well, Vash. And Knives! You understand.
For inkydoo – Good catch! Telepathic manifestations, such as Vash in his own mind, can bleed freely without a problem, unless that blood – or anything else – ends up falling outside of a mental construct. Vash appeared to be permanently losing power because his construct was falling apart and he was actually bleeding out into nothing. (Even though in his case, that nothing was also part of his construct.) The fact that he was covered in head to toe with his own blood in the previous chapter doesn't mean permanent damage, but did symbolize the energy bleed that was happening to him in reality.