Iscom woke with the unpleasant feeling that he was being stared at.
Looking across the room, he realized that he was being stared at. By a holo, but still. That counted, right?
He walked over to the table to take a closer look. It seemed to be the only area of the room where Badri had left any sign of a person living here. The holo shone brightly, projecting a still image of a group of people, posing for a photo. A wedding photo, Iscom noticed, taking in the formal wear of them all, and the glittering dress of the woman in the middle. She smiled brightly, holding on to the arm of her assumed husband. Badri? Iscom wondered, but quickly dismissed the idea. The groom's skin was darker by far than Badri's, and he was obviously one of the shortest in the holo, a claim that the tall Badri could only make in the presence of a group of absurdly large people. The bride was obviously related to Badri, however. She had the same dark hair as the sergeant, pinned elegantly to match the style of her dress. Behind her stood two nearly identical men—no, actually identical. They were twins. One was clearly the father of the bride, but he couldn't tell which. They each stood holding the arm of their wife, both of whom were crying. No clear mother of the bride, then. That left…
It took a second look at the sleeping sergeant to convince Iscom that the smiling man on the bride's side of the holo was Badri. The resemblance was clear, but it was as familial as the rest of his relatives. He was so much younger than the sergeant Iscom knew; he couldn't be older than fifteen, sixteen at the most. And obviously, Iscom allowed himself to admit, he had no cybernetics. And he was happy, really and truly. It changed his face nearly beyond recognition.
No, Iscom realized, taking a third look back at Badri. It's more than that. He tried to overly the two faces in his mind's eye, tracing the features of both men. There was something different. It was so subtle, maybe it was just the small scale of the holo, but the younger Badri's jawline was a different shape entirely, his profile narrower. His eyes were lighter in spirit, but darker in color—for one thing, they clearly had a color, even if the blue-tinted holo didn't show it. Brown, probably, guessed Iscom. Not the strange, light gray that wasn't a natural human color, not one that Iscom had ever seen, anyway. Not cybernetic, either, he added, and not blind.
The rest of the small table was filled with carefully laid out medals and a second holo, turned off. Iscom picked it up and was looking for the on switch when there was a noise from behind him.
Badri groaned, pulling himself upright. Iscom set the holo back on the table where it had been, crossing his arms in annoyance and turning to face his CO.
"You're a fucking fool, Emras, you know that?"
Badri squinted up at him, no recognition in his look. He fell backwards on the bed, head colliding with pillows once again. He fiddled with the lights on his temples—no, he was messing with the band. Taking it off, or at least sliding it down to reveal a small touchpad implanted in his head under the band, directly behind the light on his right temple. Badri slid his finger across it twice before sliding the band back up to cover it.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Afraid I didn't catch that. Too much… chiming? No, ringing," he corrected, "too much ringing to understand you. Interference. In my head," he added, as if it wasn't clear.
"I said, you're a fucking fool," Iscom repeated. "What idiot with kidney problems drinks himself into unconsciousness? I'd ask if you were trying to get yourself killed, but I'd say the answer to that is a pretty definite yes!"
Badri looked over at his arm. "How long did you have this running?" he asked.
"About five hours," Iscom answered, looking at the chrono.
"Shit," Badri swore, pulling out the tubes.
"Whoa!" Iscom said. "You really should wait until it has your system cleared! That thing'll beep when you're supposed to take it out."
"And why do you think it hasn't?" Badri challenged. "Do you really think that I drank enough to merit it running for five whole hours without managing to clear my system?"
Iscom blinked. "I…" No, he thought. One hour, tops. There's no way a dialysis machine that serious would take so long to clear something as simple as an alcohol overdose from his system.
"Check the readings," Badri said, waving at the machine. Iscom did.
His first reaction was that the machine had to be malfunctioning. Iscom stared at the screen, but the numbers didn't change drastically. Neither did the categories. Alcohol, yes. That was not a surprise. Normal things. But how and why did Badri have traces of electrum, polyplast compounds, and flexisteel, of all things, in his blood? For that matter, why did he have class-six anti-polymer fragments in his system? Those chemicals were deadly in small dosages over any length of time; they attacked both biological and metallic compounds aggressively.
Badri was checking the readings as well. "Now could you please grab one of each of the half-doses from that case?" Badri asked, pointing at a compact black case about half a meter long up against the wall. "Should be three of them. The half-dose measures are the smaller ones."
Iscom went over to grab them. This is where the syringes came from, he thought when he opened the case. There were fifteen more organized in three rows, and room for the three that were sitting on the nightstand. Behind each row sat a medicine bottle, each about one-quarter full of liquid. The chemical formulas on the instruction sheets pinned behind one were instantly familiar.
"Badri?" Iscom asked warningly. "Why the hell are you injecting yourself with a class-six anti-polymer?"
Badri had the good grace to look sheepish. "Doctors orders?" he suggested. Iscom glared. "It's because so much of my vascular system is artificial," the sergeant explained. "It… erodes, somewhat. The artificial veins, I mean. Well, the organic ones too, but that's supposed to happen," he rambled. "If I leave it for too long, I start to get microclots from the residue. The anti-polymer breaks apart the fragments that tend to stick together and clot."
"And the other two?" Iscom asked.
"One is a neutralizer for the anti-polymer," Badri said, "the other is a blood clotting agent. The anti-polymer, um, causes some damage to the organic parts of my vascular system as well," he admitted, "but since my heart is artificial anyway, counter-drugs it is."
Iscom shook his head. "This is ridiculous," he said. "How often?"
"Every four days. The microclots build up fast. Basically, my body is fucked up," Badri laughed.
"You can say that again," agreed Iscom, filling a set of smaller syringes and handing them to Badri.
"Thanks," the sergeant said, sitting upright and taking them. He set the last two on the table, leaving the anti-polymer in his hands. "This one first," he explained. "I have to wait twenty minutes before using the neutralizer."
"I'd imagine that would be incredibly painful," Iscom remarked, remembering some of the second-year lectures on chemical weapons, one of which had included something with a remarkably similar formula to the one plastered to the back of Badri's case.
"That would be pretty accurate," Badri said lightly. "If you have anything else you want to berate me for, go ahead. Otherwise, you have the rest of the day off. Tell Brash and Yuo, please."
"Kicking me out already?" Iscom joked.
"Well, you've been here for five hours without my permission," Badri pointed out, "and I'm going to be very boring for the next half-hour, unless you enjoy watching people curled up in a ball of pain."
"Not my favorite pastime, no," Iscom said, raising an eyebrow. That bad, huh? and, He does this every four days?
"Then yes, I am kicking you out," Badri nodded, and waved his hand in the direction of the door. "Scram!"
Iscom almost laughed. "You sure you don't need any help?" he asked seriously.
"Every four days," Badri repeated. "You didn't notice before now, you won't notice later. Half an hour and I'm fine."
"If you say so," Iscom surrendered, putting his hands up. "Oh, and one more thing. Brash was here too," he confessed. "He helped me bring you back here. I didn't explain any of this," he gestured at the dialysis machine and the IV, which still hadn't been explained to Iscom himself, for that matter, "and I don't think he really wants to know. I got him to leave before I hooked you up, but if he asks you any questions, that's why."
Badri absorbed this information slowly. Iscom felt as if he was trailing a word or two behind real-time in his comprehension, which, given the combination of biocomputers and massive hangovers, seemed like a realistic estimate. He finally said, "Thank you."
"Anytime," Iscom said automatically, and then he caught up to what he had said. "Wait. No, not anytime. Don't do this to me again," he ordered.
Badri only smiled. "I don't make promises that I can't keep," he said. Some of the unfathomable weariness and utter depression from last night crept through to the pain in his eyes.
"Close enough," Iscom relented, startled by the look. Something in the sergeant's eyes threatened to haunt him at night, nightmares of ships crashed and friends killed.