Tailspin, page 12
“Alba,” Jim said. “That was hardly fair.”
“No, but we needed to cover our backs.” She mouthed I’m sorry at me, and I tried to respond but couldn’t.
“Get me a chair,” Jim said, and I saw him move to my bed, hitting the emergency button.
Alba ran off, and I saw Jim’s face near mine. “She means well, honestly. We’ll sort you out, don’t worry.”
“But the cost,” I moaned, and my voice cracked. “Please, don’t leave me in debt for—forever.”
“Better in debt than with no future or dead,” he said.
They helped me into a wheelchair, and Alba wheeled me off, Jim at her side. “Team’s incoming,” Alba said to him. Then with a hand on my shoulder she said, “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you, as always.”
“You’re going to be awake for this,” Jim said, his voice low.
“What?” I asked.
“We can’t knock you out so soon after coming around. Your surgery was major. This will have to be just under local anesthetic.”
“Will I be able to see it all?”
“You don’t need to look,” Alba said. “I can sit talking to you the whole time if you wish.”
“Please,” I begged her. “Don’t leave me.”
The rush to get me into the operating room was so fast. I was wheeled straight into a clean room, stripped, and sprayed down, as was the doc. Then, once on the other side, I was helped to a table by two other nurses in full gear. Alba came in a moment later wearing the same gear with the doc following.
“Just me and thee,” he said. “We’ll get this done and you back out of here in no time.”
Little did I know that “no time” to him meant hours of painstaking keyhole surgery to me. My hand…of course it had to be my hand. The most important thing, I guessed, for a pilot. I asked Alba all kinds of questions as they carried on. When I thought I felt any kind of pain, I let her know, and they would check my anesthetic levels and top them back up.
“It’s hurting again.”
Alba glanced at Jim.
“He can’t have any more of this, either,” Jim said. “He’s already had more than I dare give him.”
“How close are you to finishing?” she asked.
“An hour?”
Alba took my other hand in hers. “We can’t give you any more.”
I swallowed. “Had too much in the last month, haven’t I?”
“Your liver was already at its limit from the overdosing; kidneys, too, for other reasons. They were upgraded, but they’re still at risk.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said and sucked in a breath. “Keep going.”
“We’ll stop anytime you need,” Jim said.
“No, don’t. Like you said. This is my only chance. Do it.”
Alba did her best to distract me. When Jim caught something in the middle of my wrist, my hand twitched. “Straps,” Jim said. He looked me in the eye. “You move anytime in the next minute and I might cut off the wrong parts.”
They strapped me down tight and I took it. Every tiny movement inside my wrist hurt. Every. Single. Fucking. One.
“Stand down,” a voice I didn’t know came over the comms echoing around the room. “Doctor Brosk, you have no authority to do this.”
13
Doctor Brosk never looked up at the booming voice ordering him to stand down. “It was an emergency,” he stated.
Michaels’s face appeared on the screen behind the doctor. I couldn’t see the other man with him. I stared into Michaels eyes and he stared into mine.
“What’s going on?” It was the concern on Michaels’s face that immediately made me want to vomit. “That’s no normal surgery.”
“No,” Jim reported. “I’m changing the hand piece for the X1’s baby sister.”
“The X24?” The same gruff voice came from behind Michaels. I couldn’t see him, but he was pissed. “Tell me you’re joking.” Then he directed the question to Michaels. “He’s joking, right?”
“No joke,” Jim said, and I caught his eyes. He was worried. Fuck. “She’s already in,” he added. “Took like a charm. I’m just reconnecting the tendons and the blood flow now.”
“That part takes his cost to over two and a half million credits, Doctor Brosk,” Mr. Gruff said.
“I’m aware,” Jim said. “Believe me, I’m aware.”
Two and a half million credits.
Two. And. A. Half. Million. Fucking. Credits.
I was fucked. Totally fucked.
Of everything they’d given me. Of everything they could give me. This was one of the most expensive.
I paled enough Alba squeezed my hand, redirecting my gaze away from the observation room. “Look at me, Ruslan. The cost is worth it; they’re just grouchy assholes.”
I coughed at her assholes comment. What if they heard her? On the inside, I was screaming, trying to work out the math. “That’s a thousand years of my life.”
“You’ll be worth much more to them than a ten or even fifty million credits where they want you to go,” Alba said.
My mouth was dry. So, so dry, yet bile rose up my throat. I wanted to be sick.
“Hold on,” Jim begged. “I’m almost there. I promise.”
Alba put a finger in front of my eyes. “Tell me the prices of everything they’ve done for you already.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“I know that’s what you’re doing, so tell me. Tell me the prices you see. Then add them up. See what you’re worth already. Because it is a lot, yes, but believe you me, you really are worth it.”
I focused on the list I’d seen, then I read it out to her.
Running Cost - Ruslan Korolyov
Macie’s Hospital
Scans, Nurse, Bath - 100,000
Special Drug Cocktail - 55,000
Special Transport - 20,000
Rise Hospital
18 x Special Scans and Treatments = 475,000
8 x Specialist Nurse Substitutes After First 9 Hours of Surgery = 188,000
1 x Senior Surgeon = 500,000
4 x Surgeons = 80,000
2 x Anesthesiologists = 70,000
24-hour ICU Care with 8 Round-the-Clock Nurses = 220,000
1 Senior Doctor with Round-the-Clock Care = 195,000
All replacement organelles are of the highest quality.
Facial stabilization, metal plates, jaw surgery, wiring around the eye, partial nose socket, and breathing adaptation together - 88,000
Nite Cleanse and Resupply - Muscle and Bone Healing = 50,000
Basic - Specialist Lungs - 42,000
Basic - Liver Replacement - 50,000
Upgraded Brain Mod Tier 2, to Tier 3 - 20,000
X1 - Cerebral Mod - Tier 3 - 322,000
AIT17 - Tier ?? Cost ?? – Experimental
M177 - Right Arm Full Mod - 110,000
Hand Unit Replaced With - X24 - Tier 3 - 189,000
Total ??
Cost = Rising
There was no doubt in my mind that some of these prices were just extortionate, but I couldn’t argue over it; it was already done. The mods were in. That was it.
The total, which I added up as it came in, it really was over two million credits, without the actual price of the mods themselves, and that wasn’t including the intensive care and the doctor that sat in waiting afterward, in case anything went wrong, and something did go wrong.
I swallowed, cursed, and wanted to run.
“You signed the contract. You can’t run,” she said, guessing. “What you can do is deal with it, focus, and prove to them you’re more than worth it.”
“I am,” I said, though my voice shook. “I am worth it.”
“Closing now,” Jim said, glancing up at me. “Everything’s out. There’s no other sign of infection.”
“How does anyone afford this kind of hospital care?” I asked.
Alba leaned in closer. “We’re an elite hospital, we charge more because those who usually come here can pay it.”
“Usually, yes I’m sure. Everyone’s rich up here, you can smell it. Me, not so much. Why the hell am I here?”
“Because they wanted you to be.” Jim answered.
“You are worth it,” Alba replied. “I promise you that. You have some extremely high-test scores when you were in school.”
“When I was in school.” I had to laugh at that. I’d gotten into so much trouble as a teen. Poor Tsomak, I had been such a pain in the ass.
Jim caught something in closing up my skin and pain shot up my arm. “Ahh!”
Michaels’s face watched mine, grimacing. “He’s not on any pain relief right now, is he?”
I shook my head, kind of answering for Jim. I felt every tiny stitch as he closed me back up.
“This will feel cold,” Jim informed me. “Let me know if it is too much.”
Letting the straps up, I sucked in a breath, expecting pain. Instead it felt just as he had said it would. Cold.
Jim’s eyes met mine. “You’re going to hurt all night,” he said. “When it starts. It won’t stop.”
“I know, just get me to my room,” I said. “Please don’t let anyone in. I can’t, I won’t…”
“We’ll look after you,” he said. “I promise. I will not leave you.”
I nodded, and Alba did her best to move my arm so it rested on my knee. I let it sit there, staring at the tiny stitches. They were perfect. He was an amazing surgeon. No wonder I never saw anything the first time around.
Alba helped me into bed, then got me some water. “I’m going to be right through that door, you know it.”
“And I’m sitting right here,” Jim added. He pulled up a chair and rested his data pad on his knee.
“I’ll get you the couch out in the main room,” Alba said.
“I just want to sleep, if I can,” I said, and I laid my head down. My head throbbed; my hand just felt cold. So cold.
The throbbing didn’t go away at all. It was some time later that I had a drip fitted, and someone was massaging my temples for me. It wasn’t Alba; I could see her in the doorway watching, and I could see Jim in the chair, asleep. “Who?”
“Rest,” a female voice whispered from behind me. That wasn’t Roe either. It was too soft, too husky.
Whatever she was doing was making my headache easier, though. So much easier. I let out a slight moan.
“My cousin knocked for me,” a male voice said at my side. I couldn’t quite see him with only a small light illuminating the room behind me. He was shorter than me and thick. What I could see were the green flecks of his eyes staring steadily at me. “So in the elevator I did a little digging, and then I called her. She was in pure panic mode, said something had gone wrong, and that they’d had to take you back into surgery.”
Cousin, she. He meant Roe, right? She never mentioned that…that they were related. “You’re Niko?” I asked. “And you’re related?”
“You’re good with names. Roe said you’d never remember it. I am related to Roe; she’s not.”
“She’s a mage? A healer?”
“I have my skills,” the woman said from behind me.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked.
“Good question,” she said. “Is it working?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then sneaking off base and risking a disciplinary was worth it.”
“You what?” I watched as Alba kept eyeing them, but I couldn’t see anything she was doing. I could only feel it.
“We got a ride up in a helo and tried to cross unnoticed, just to see you.”
“You’re doing something weird,” I said.
“No shit.” She laughed. I tried to move, but then something held me in place. “Don’t move. I don’t want to have to do it again.”
“Okay,” I said and lay back. I let her fingers gently massage me, helping me.
“So,” Niko pushed. “Tell me why they spent so much on you, an unknown?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You really didn’t know.” She scoffed. “Over two million credits.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“You’re like an open book when I’m doing this,” she said, and when I went to move again, she added, “Err, works both ways. Look at me.”
I did. When her total flashed up, I got quite the shock. “You cost—shit—four million?”
“And still racking it up,” she replied.
“Niko was six.” Jim’s voice came from the corner. I glanced at him, and he sat up straight. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“Great, I start off at a disadvantage already.” I laughed as Jim stood and moved to the bottom of the bed. He looked over my notes, then scanned me over with his device.
“No,” she insisted. “You get the best advantage. ‘Cause you will already know Niko.”
I reached up with my freshly operated-on hand and put it on hers. “You’re not at the same school?” I asked.
“We are both in OOF. I was in the same lectures. He took a different path. I, well, I have skills that are needed elsewhere.”
“You’re together?” I felt myself blush as I said it.
Lacy pushed my hand away. “For now. We’re good for each other. We push each other.”
“Even into criminal activity,” Jim added. “Not really the best points to add to your record.”
“You’re not going to bubble us,” Niko said. “He needed us.”
“No, I won’t, but only because he needed it.” Jim’s voice lowered. “You have to be back by morning, or we’re all going to be in serious trouble.”
“They have recordings all over the base,” Niko said. “If they want to look, they can see us, and find us, and then boot us off our reputable programs.”
“I’m sure they won’t,” I added. “You’re doing a good thing.”
“A seriously good thing,” Jim added.
The young woman stayed behind me, her fingers rhythmically moving against my skin. She widened her reach, and I couldn’t help it. I let out another low moan.
“Steady on,” Niko growled.
“It’s pain relief,” Lacy quipped. “He’s in agony.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t stop them from spilling over. The relief was tremendous. I would have let her stay with me forever like this if I needed it. But she would have to go at some point.
Jim sat at the end of the bed. “Hand,” he asked.
I gave him my hand, and he looked it over. “Feels better.”
“Will see how it is tomorrow night, but it looks to have taken. And it’s healing even faster with Lacy’s help.”
“It might even be fully healed by morning,” she said. “Depends how much I can cycle into him. It’s not exactly mana city up here.”
“No,” Jim said. “We tend to harvest it for other things. There’s not an abundance of it going free.”
Mana. That meant nothing but magic to me, and it felt like magic.
I wanted to talk to Niko, to pick his brain since he was already in the unit I wanted to be in. But I stumbled over my thoughts. The pain marred everything, even with the relief.
Jim moved away and spoke to Alba at the door. Then I felt a breeze, and someone sat down on the end of the bed.
Niko stared at me, and I could only watch him. In standard brown slacks and a green shirt, he looked to be a similar height to me, but he had a much better build, with thick legs and arms, sandy blond hair, and stubble. Good food would do wonders in training.
Niko snatched up the data pad at the end of the bed.
“That’s a bit personal.” Lacy’s voice almost vibrated through my mind.
“No more personal than you seeing his stats,” Niko quipped. He studied it, me, for a moment. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“I know,” I replied.
“They’re going to give you some advice. Listen, nod in all the right places, and then ignore it.”
“I hardly think taking advice from you is the best idea, either,” Lacy said.
“Look who’s already ahead of the curve here.” His tone of voice, raised eyebrows, and furrowed brow meant he wasn’t joking. This was something he really believed.
“What do you suggest?” I asked, cautious to see what I might be getting into with this guy around me.
“Your intelligence scores are top-notch. The tech will interpret anything once it learns how you think and react. You have to teach it the way you want it to work with you, not the way they want it to work for them. Every chance you get, push it. Also, look online for Vanguard Escapes 101. There’s a lot of stuff to look over. You don’t want to be reading it, you want to hear it. Audio only. That means when you’re walking, running, or sleeping. Start at the beginning and just go for it. Hit play and listen. It will sink in. Play it again and again.”
It seemed like the oddest suggestion ever to just listen to a book again and again, but I didn’t know the book. “Okay.”
“Also, you’ll need to bulk up slower than they’ll want. You’re not built for it.”
“Slower on the food. Faster on the upload. Got it.”
“See, he really is smart,” Niko teased Lacy.
Something in his face changed, though, and I felt her fingers slack a little. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Niko was off the bed, moving behind me and toward her in a second. I tried to turn but couldn’t. “You’re a lot of work,” she panted. “I’m tired.”
“You can’t do anymore,” I said, and I cringed on the inside. How long would this lesser pain last for?
“No,” she admitted. “I’m sorry. I feel pretty useless.”
For the first time, she came around the side of the bed, and I could see her. Short-cropped red hair, freckles, a long, thin nose, and bright blue eyes. “Don’t be. I’m honestly grateful for any relief.”
“You might not think that when the pain returns.” She frowned.
“I need to get you back,” Niko said, holding her tight to him. His obvious care for her was written on every part of his body. He held out a hand for me. “I’ll see you in a few weeks,” he said. “Yeah?”
I tentatively took it, but he didn’t squeeze. “I have so much I want to ask you.”
