Tailspin, page 50
“Josef,” I repeated. I met his eyes with mine. It was easier than trying to see where we were going. “Rusty.”
“Rusty?” He cocked his head to one side.
“Short story, I stood on a nail, ended up in hospital for some jabs.”
“I apologize for my behavior,” he said. “It was not my best moment.”
“No need at all. I understand. She’s your daughter.” I was almost going to add something about her sister, but I reined in that comment. I did not know all the details, only that he had lost one daughter. Losing another…hell, it was no wonder at all that he was so uptight.
“Coming into Trimaran,” a voice said over the comms.
I glanced back to the front, and what I saw…holy shit. Trimaran made Ocean Oil Fields look tiny. This city spread as far as I could see underwater.
“How fast were we traveling?”
“A lot faster than your helo could ever take you,” General Canlas said.
Within another second, we were over the city’s top, and it spread below us. I craned my neck to see it. Buildings, tiny dots underneath us. I couldn’t believe it. It looked like any regular city up on land, except for all this…it was all underwater, tons and tons of it. Billions of tons of it.
We headed down towards a spiraling central building to one side of us. I watched as I eventually could make out the windows and other structures within the grounds. We were so close, and with a slight bump, we’d landed.
General Canlas didn’t hesitate and stood, waiting for the doors to open. When it popped and hissed, I flinched.
“It’s all pressurized down here. Don’t worry.”
I was, though. “I’ve never been this deep. I’ve never been more than ten feet in a river or lake.”
“You’re with me. Come.”
60
We walked out of the docking area and were met by an escort of four men. “Follow us, general,” one said, and he walked away fast. I struggled to keep up with them.
This building, everything about it screamed not only money, but science. The only thing you couldn’t see through was the floor and ceiling. Both the walls either side of me were totally see-through. That meant I could see water, lots and lots of water, and then other sections of this city.
Eventually we got to a set of double doors. The man that had spoken put his wrist to the door and we stepped inside an elevator. “We’ll be there shortly.”
We went down even further now, and then went through several sections where we were sanitized with toxic killing rays. The hospital bio security was top notch. It was, to me, something out of a sci-fi video on Aug-World, not a life I knew.
I glanced at General Canlas once as he was getting dusted off in a containment unit.
“You good?” he asked.
“Fine,” I replied, though he probably knew I was struggling not to piss myself on the inside.
“They’re just being extra sure we’re not carrying anything on the outside that could hurt those in intensive care.”
We both stepped into a room with several nurses and doctors. One in a pure white uniform, top to tail, stopped me. “You’re the one she’s asking for?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Come with me.”
I glanced once at the general, but he bade me on.
I followed the white uniform through into an even tighter secured room. There she was, surrounded by machines and tech. Oh god, she looked awful. A thin nightshirt covered some of her, but the rest? She was black and blue. Worse than I ever had been. I wanted to be sick. I couldn’t, though. I swallowed.
Malaki saw me, and her hands lifted slightly, begging me closer.
I didn’t know you were here, she said directly to me.
My heart melted, the need to vomit gone. I took a few steps to her trembling limbs and I took her hands in mine gently. Her face was swollen on one side, her lip split and bleeding. I noted the color up her right arm, how it differed to her left.
Broken, Apex said. She can’t feel anything. She’s pumped high on all kinds of drugs.
I’m here.
My father?
Also here.
Her eyes leaked, tears streaming down her cheeks, and I could do nothing but react and try to wipe them away. “Mal, I’m here,” I said aloud.
Rus, she said. More tears spilled over, and there was no way I could catch them all.
I’m here, Mal. I’m going nowhere, nowhere at all. Even if he tells me to fuck off.
Malaki closed her eyes. You don’t know, she said. Rus, you don’t know.
Know what?
Ask him, please. Ask him to tell you about Aspa.
Your sister?
Yes, she gasped. Please.
I will, I said, and I squeezed her hands. I will. I promise.
Malaki pulled me to her, till my forehead touched hers. Rus, she said. Whatever happens, know I love you.
“You’re my best friend. They’ll look after you,” I whispered. “They’re the best, your father says so.”
Don’t believe everything he says. She coughed.
I couldn’t see her eyes this close, but I felt her. I felt how we melded together. He’d do anything for you. I know that much. I believe him on that.
I heard people moving around me. Then a hand on my elbow. “We need to move her now.”
I didn’t get any other words from her. I didn’t have time.
Malaki was gone.
Someone was beside me in a moment, and I felt their aura. Strong and overpowering on many levels.
“Tell me about her,” General Canlas said.
“What?” I had to ask him. I turned to him and saw the remnants of nurses rushing after Malaki’s bed. I didn’t really understand his question.
“Tell me what you think of her. What you see.”
“Oh, that’s easy one to answer.” I smiled. When he raised an eyebrow, I quickly backpedaled. “Not like that. Not at all.”
“So you’re not interested in a romantic relationship with my daughter?”
Fuck, I’d said the wrong thing already. But I had to be honest. “No,” I said, tapping the side of my head. “I’m interested in this”—I tapped my heart—”and this.”
It was hard to separate the general from the man before me, Josef. He closed his eyes for a second. “I admit, I was hoping you might one day be interested in her like that.”
“Why?”
“I’ve listened to the way she talks about you. The way she admires you and clearly”—he paused, scrunching his hands together—“loves you.”
Loves?
I had shied away from that word even if she’d just said it. Hearing it from her father made it seem much more complicated. “Sir—”
“Josef,” he insisted.
“Love is a powerful word. I’ve known her a few months, that’s all.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. What I think of her goes deep, love…I…but not like that.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Tell me, son. What did you honestly feel when you saw that helo go down?”
I thought back to that moment. What had I felt? Devastated, pure excruciating agony. Like my whole world fell apart. I wanted to tell him that, but I hesitated.
“Exactly,” he said. “I can see it on your face. You don’t need to tell me.”
I didn’t want to piss him off in any way at all. I did, however, need to ask him about Aspa. “Is there somewhere we can go that’s more private?”
His face paled, but he nodded at me and indicated the door. “She’ll be in surgery for a while; it will not be normal surgery. There’s a residence here I can use when needed. No one else is here today. Would you come with me?”
“General, I am here with no idea where I am. I’m at your disposal.”
He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Ruslan Korolyov,” he said, using my full name. “No, not at all. I am at your disposal.”
Those five words…holy shit.
I put my hand on his. “Lead.”
We walked together, and he wobbled more than a few times, especially when he saw those who were of similar rank to him or higher. If there could be any higher.
When he closed the doors of his quarters, he leaned on them, and I finally saw tears. Real tears.
I never left his side. No way, not at all. When one of the strongest men on Ocean Oil Fields in Artem crumpled before me, I went down with him. Every step of the way.
“What if she doesn’t make it? I can’t, I can’t do this,” he cried. Soft sobs echoed through his room. “I can’t go on without her.”
I held his arm, and I could do nothing but speak from my heart. “Josef,” I whispered. “If she doesn’t make it, you can and will do this. You know why?”
He shrugged, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“Because you love her, and yes, because I love her. We will do this because that is what she would want. Right?”
The eyes of General Canlas met mine with nothing but sheer determination. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, she would.”
With the both of us moving to sit properly on a small couch and chair, I risked all that I was with the words I was about to say. “Malaki told me to ask you something.”
“What is it?” he asked, wiping his puffy eyes.
“It’s a hard one, for that I apologize. It’s about Aspa.”
As strong as he was, the General paled even more, and I noted his breathing alter, his focus gone again. “I—I—I can’t.”
“Yes,” I urged. “For Malaki, for Aspa, you can. Tell me about them, please.”
“They were twins,” he whispered, his hands shaking.
“Double trouble. I bet you had your hands full.”
“We did. Tika, my wife, my first wife and their mother, took them most of the time. I was so career-focused.”
He looked at me, and I saw great pain. I didn’t need to prod him anymore, though. Now he was talking about them. It was an open floodgate.
“I’m confused,” I admitted. “First wife. That means Malaki’s mother now isn’t her birth mother?” I hadn’t known that.
Josef shook his head. “It was an accident like nothing anyone had ever seen. For a long time, we thought foul play. It wasn’t. At least, nothing anyone could prove.”
“What happened?”
“Tika was bringing them home after I’d returned from being stationed away for a while. I was so looking forward to seeing them. Their shuttle was hit from the left side at a junction. The lights were both on the green. Neither stood a chance. Both drivers were killed instantly.” He only paused to wipe tears from his cheeks, and I wished I’d not asked. “Malaki was thrown through the side window, her seatbelt defective. It did nothing at all to stop her. The protective glass took a hell of a force for it to shatter, resulting in most of her bones being broken with it and her spine shattered. Medivac drones responded to the accident reports immediately, but the shuttle set alight, with Aspa still inside.”
“Alive?”
“Yes,” he said. “She was burned alive.”
“I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t say anything else.
“Without Aspa’s death, we wouldn’t have been able to save Malaki,” he said. “No money in the world could have prepared me to see her in the condition she was in here.”
“They brought her here?”
“I did. We stabilized her at Rise, and I had no choice but to move her. M-Corp wanted more money than I had and wanted her in full servitude for the rest of her life, with no questions. She was theirs, with no free will at all. There was nothing else I could do for her. Jim—sorry, Doctor Brosk—had seen Aspa’s remains. He knew her bone structure. More importantly, her spine was intact. He couldn’t do that kind of operation without help, without a seriously high-level mage, and they’re more expensive and rarer, according to the Living Earth.” I must have looked nonplussed, as he added, “The elves. I bought one’s help elsewhere.”
“The Techean have mages too?” I asked. I had so many questions, dumb questions. Ugh, I let out a little sigh.
Josef nodded.
“She came here, and you removed her sister’s spine to give it to her?”
“Yes,” he said. “With a little tech, of course.”
“Her core bone structure is her siste—” I recalled when I’d seen her naked back at ground school. That black mark, it was a scar. “That’s why she can’t or won’t have any tech? It’s not just a choice. She’s terrified of hospitals, right?”
“Yes,” he said again, his head nodding slowly. “Bringing her here must have brought back all those memories, the aftereffects, the rehab.”
“It would be nothing like rehab for me was after my first operations, up and running in a week.”
“I left her here,” he admitted, his face solemn. “I left her here because I couldn’t cope with seeing her. It took twelve months for her to be back on her feet. It took her eighteen months to come gunning for me.”
“You were grieving,” I said softly. “Right?”
Tears streamed down his face. “Every time I see her, I see Aspa. Every time I look at her, I see my wife. But I never stopped loving her. I just couldn’t face her, not then.”
“And now?”
“All I want is my little girl to be okay. I want—” His sobs grew, and I felt really awkward. I knew what it was like to lose someone, someone I loved. But he’d lost two.
“Mal is strong.” I moved to stand beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “She won’t give up without a fight.”
“I know,” he said, his head bobbing up and down. “I am very proud of the woman she has become, despite what she might think.”
He patted my hand, and I took it as my queue to leave him be. I sat back down and smiled. “She thinks the world of you, I am sure. When she spoke of you and her mother…”
“She actually said that?”
“Yes,” I replied. “She didn’t tell me her birth mother had passed or much about her sister. Now it’s obvious she couldn’t tell me why. I am glad you did that. She felt you could. That means a lot.”
“She’s never told anyone about Aspa,” he said. “Ever. She wouldn’t even talk to a counselor for many years. The fact she told you she had a sister tells me everything I need to know about you.”
“Mal trusts me, and she also told me she loved me.”
The general’s eyes lit up again, but I shook my head. “I really don’t, not like that. What I do have is very strong. I would do anything for her, and I mean that.”
He puffed his chest up. “Then I will fight for you, even if I have to stand up to her mother and do just that.”
I sat back, knowing this would be a very long night.
I had no idea when I’d fallen asleep, but I was shaken awake at some point.
“She’s out of surgery,” Josef said.
“What happened? Is she okay?”
“She’s okay. She’s already asking for you.”
“You’ve seen her?” I sat up, wiping the side of my mouth.
“Yes,” he said. “I have a meeting to attend to rule over the decisions M-Corp reps have made against you and Silao.”
“They were going to kick us out?”
He nodded. “Don’t fear. It will be sorted today, and you will both be clear.”
“Okay,” I said. But I would worry. Silao sure would have been.
“I’ll comm as soon as the meeting is over. Please go through to her.”
I did. I would have run if I could, but that might have looked a bit silly to the general, who was already thinking myself and his daughter were going to be more than friends, no matter how many times I’d said something to contradict it.
I stood by the door, unable to go in, watching Malaki sitting there, looking over a data pad. Her eyes lifted up and met mine. I could do nothing then but run to her and retake her hands in mine, gently hugging her. Feeling her warmth, her heart beating.
“Hey, you,” I whispered ever so softly. “You scared us all there.”
“I know; I’m sorry.” She pushed back from me.
“Not your fault. How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said. “Father explained what they got from everyone under investigation.”
“He’s gone to stop them from kicking us out.”
“Here’s my report.” Malaki held up the data pad for me to look at.
I moved to sit beside her on the bed and read over it. “It was that clear cut?” I asked her.
“It was sabotage,” she said. “I’m a thousand percent sure. My father will start internal investigations. Someone on OOF is responsible. I wasn’t the target, though. Just bad luck there, I’m afraid. The helo was supposed to go out with someone else. Silao getting them to let it out with us. First, that was…”
“Just bad luck,” I repeated.
“Very.” She leaned against me. “I didn’t mean to say what I did before they took me away.”
“About your sister?”
Malaki patted my arm and then held onto it. “That I loved you.”
“Oh,” I said. “So you don’t love me?” I felt her flinch. “I’m kidding, Mal,” I said. “I know, and I’m telling you this now. Because I want you to know, too.” Her eyes met mine. “You are the family I choose, and I love you, too. I want you to know in as much time as I’ve known you. I’ve never felt this for anyone.”
I wrapped her up tighter into my arms, and I held on.
“Get me out of here,” she said. “Please, I don’t care if I have to sit in bunks for a week. I’m not staying here.”
“I’m not sure I should be doing that.” I frowned. “But I will.”
61
We’d already missed the end of term. Gotten a pass for it, apparently. Malaki and I had gotten out of the hospital, and her father had managed to secure us a ride back to OOF from the underwater city. I did not want to stay here more than needed, and Malaki laughed at my fear of water. While we waited by the dock, I watched her. She still looked terrible. Her lip had healed, but her face still looked bruised.
I wondered how long it had taken for my own to fade. It wasn’t something I had noticed, or needed to notice. No one around me said anything about it, so it just didn’t cross my mind.
