Tailspin, page 71
I crossed my arms. “You’re—”
“Smart? Handsome?”
“A fucking idiot.”
I followed him, and we headed toward Station Five and the underground facility. Twenty minutes later, I had baby Jasmine in my arms while the two talked in hushed voices with the doctor. I didn’t hear what they were saying, but the gist of it was something was up.
I held onto Jasmine’s finger and rocked her back and forth gently.
Lacy stepped to me, and I handed her back reluctantly. “Everything okay?”
“It will be,” Lacy said. “This little one is just not putting weight on.”
She felt heavy enough to me. “Niko’s putting it on instead,” I said, observing him as he came over. “You need to watch him.”
“You need to get him out running more. Maybe he wouldn’t be awake half the night then with this one comfort eating.”
“Okay, okay!” I raised my hands up, trying to ward her off. “I can do that.”
“Do what?” Niko asked.
“You’re out with me in the morning for a run,” I said. “Doctor’s orders.”
Lacy nodded. “If she wakes at night, I’ll take her for a few weeks. I can manage.”
Niko shot me a glare yet patted his belly. “Yeah, I really do need to get back in shape. Malaki’s been moaning the helo’s carrying more.”
Lacy led us out of the doctor’s offices and through a few corridors. Niko and I talked a little about Jasmine and the night shift.
“I found your mystery Techean,” Lacy said.
I stopped walking and she turned to smile at me. I was watching where we were going. Where I shouldn’t be.
“What?” I asked and gave Niko a side eyed WTF…I had hoped they’d forgotten even if I hadn’t.
“Come on, don’t be that shy,” Lacy said. “Niko and I think you need a friend, you know, for some fun.”
“Fun,” I said and glared at Niko. “You mean so I get laid?”
“Isn’t it kinda frustrating…” Niko said then blushed.
I laughed, but on the inside I really did want to know who this young woman was.
No one spoke. We all just kinda looked from one to the other and Jasmine fussed. “So go on, then. Tell me,” I said.
Lacy grinned at me then. “She was hard to find,” she admitted. “Took me a while to dig through some records to even figure out what she was doing down there. But I got her.”
The way she paused…I swallowed. This woman was going to be way out of my league, and I knew it.
Lacy stared at me, “You’re right. She’s way out of your league.”
“How did you even…”
“I know you and I know my partner. You’re so much alike.” She rolled her eyes. “Her name is Mira Ereia. She’s the daughter of one of the Council of Elders.”
“Sounds ominous,” I said, making a mental note to look it all up. In fact, to learn just more in general. I’d said I would. I just had so much going on; my brain, the X1 included, never stopped doing things.
Niko slapped me on the back. “We’ll get you set up with someone,” he said. “I know this—”
“No,” I said, my voice stern. “I barely have the time to sleep, let alone talk to anyone else.”
“I was going to say…”
“No.” This time I glared at him.
“Okay, okay, I get it. No blind dates.” But his grin said exactly the opposite. I knew I’d be off on one before I knew it.
Niko dropped his head and we turned down another set of corridors, stopped by a door, and Lacy opened it, waving me to go in. Both Niko and I followed her.
“We won’t get long here,” she said. “But while I had the chance, I wanted you to see this.” Stepping to the central control station, Lacy put her key card into it.
“What is this place?” I asked, all thoughts of Mira gone for now. I looked around the room as lights flickered on. It was pristine on all sides, medical and tech. Better than most labs I’d seen at Rise. This was insane.
“I’ve had the opportunity while I was off work to help integrate this.” The room before me shifted, the floor turning white and moving. I held onto the desk for support, but Niko and Lacy didn’t flinch.
A large glass window shimmered silver, then turned opaque.
Before us was…what…
I turned to Lacy. “What is that?”
“Our first Steel Spider.” She beamed.
“First?”
“Prototype,” Niko added for me. “It’s only a baby, but it’s got potential.”
“Can I get closer?”
“We’ve not introduced it to any DPs yet.”
“You can’t bring me here and not let me,” I said. Lacy and Niko traded glances. I begged. “Come on.”
“Lace,” Niko warned.
Lacy, however, sat down, Jasmine on her knee.
Niko moved in and took her from his fiancé. “I’ve got her. Concentrate.”
My stomach flipped. “Really?”
“You put it in my head,” Lacy said. “Give me a moment.”
Apex on the inside of me said, Be careful. This is not a drone.
I can see that.
“We’re cleared,” Lacy said.
“Cleared? As in, you asked for permission?”
She nodded and started to input several things into her station. The room with the spider lit up, the shiny silver metal glinting.
A door to my side clicked, and I looked at it. “Go on, just nice and steady. It’s used to new people. Just not your kind of new.”
“It’s really a spider, though?” I asked, and yet I moved for the door.
“Yes,” Lacy said. “A venomous one.”
“How venomous?” I asked.
“Very, be careful.”
The door slid open, and though I hesitated a little, I sucked in a breath and stepped inside. It closed behind me, and that I did not like. “Hey!”
“We’re watching you both. I have full control if something goes wrong.”
“Goes wrong? Lacy!”
I did, however, turn to face the creature before me. Head height.
Two large, light blue-silver eyes stared straight at me, with two smaller ones at the top sides of each of those. It watched me like I watched it.
“Do you know what kind of thought processes it has?” I asked.
“Its basic instincts are for survival.”
“So food,” I said and fumbled inside my jacket pocket. I had nothing to give it.
“Drawer to your left,” Lacy said.
I moved slowly to the drawer, never taking my eyes off of it.
“Male or female?” I asked.
“Female,” Lacy replied.
I pulled out a treat for her that looked like a bag of something…it squelched in my hands. I moved back to stand before her and held it out, struggling to keep my hand from shaking.
“They can sense fear,” Niko said.
“You don’t need to tell me that. Most animals can.”
The fur, no, hair, at the sides of the spider’s mandibles shivered and moved. Then within the blink of an eye, one of its legs snatched the treat out of my hand by stabbing it and putting it into two slightly smaller spikes to its maw. Within a second, she was making the most awful sucking sounds.
“I don’t want to know what was in that bag.”
“No,” Lacy replied. “You don’t.”
I waited while she finished eating and noted everything that she was.
Eight long, spiked silver legs merged with her flesh at the first joint. Her abdomen had armor, and so did her chest cavity. The silver metal also stretched over her skull.
Was there really much of her that wasn’t metal?
On the inside, she’s all flesh.
Brain capacity?
A little less than mine, he added.
Smart, then. That also gave me thoughts about what he actually was.
No, he said. I am not an arachnid.
You are something, though.
Apex wouldn’t answer that question. I focused back on the spider.
“See if she will let you touch her,” Lacy said.
I held my hand out again, with no treat this time. The spider’s eyes were hard to follow because there were four. But the two at the back, the smaller ones, looked down.
I saw her smaller feet move. What are they called?
Palps, Apex said. They’re to help feed her.
I pulled my hand away, and so did she. I’m not food.
No, they’re also feelers. She will use them to feel you.
I hesitated, but then I put my hand back and waited.
I can almost see her thinking, I said to Apex.
The spider’s palp came back towards me; as light as a feather, she touched me, and I smiled.
Blue flashing lights flickered across both her eyes. Nites.
“Hey there,” I said softly.
I held out my other hand for her, then, too, my tech one. This she stared at for quite some time.
“It’s a way to see me,” I said. “Friend to friend.”
One of the giant legs moved, and she touched me lightly like her palp had. I felt the needle sharpen into it.
“You okay?” Niko asked.
Then there was pressure. The tapered leg of the spider slit right through my hand in one easy push.
I let out a gasp. “Wait!” I shouted to my friends, knowing they would be straight in there.
“Rus?” Lacy asked.
“She means no harm,” I said, though I was in pain.
“She just sliced your hand open.” Niko was at the door. I could see his concern.
“Wait!”
This was an exchange I didn’t know I would do. “Pain,” I said to her. “You are hurting me.”
My blood dripped onto the floor.
The little palp moved from my hand, touched my blood, then, to my disgust, put it to her mouth. Then she moved it to my face, and I let her feel me anywhere she wanted to. She was so gentle. I almost sneezed when she ran it down the front of my face and off the end of my nose.
The palp moved to her mandibles, and I saw a gleaming drop of venom on the end. She touched it with her palp, the drop sitting on a couple of the hairs. Then she moved to her metal leg and paused before it to focus all four eyes on me.
“You want that inside me?” I asked.
She didn’t speak.
“You want my permission?” I thought about it for a moment and, of course, asked. Apex. Lacy said her venom is lethal, right?
Highly toxic, yes.
She doesn’t mean me harm; I said to him. I feel that, do you?
I feel an attraction, something, but she does not wish us to come to harm at all.
“I accept,” I said to her and nodded.
The palp moved just enough so that the drop of venom slid onto the leg, and I watched as it sped towards my open wound.
“Heart rate is rising,” Lacy reported.
“I’m scared,” I said. “That’s why.”
The steel leg moved and retracted from my hand. I kept it held outwards so that we could all see it clearly.
What was a drip was now running free. But something else happened. It stopped. The blood bubbled, and my flesh began to close over.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked.
“You better believe we are,” Lacy confided. “You’re ignoring your HUD, look.”
“What?” I looked, and yes, there were notifications.
Connection Made - First of its kind.
I smiled at Niko. “I finally have the name for our squad.”
“What?” he asked.
“Steel Spiders.”
83
My morning runs had taken a turn for the worse. This was my day off, and I was still out in the cold. It was absolutely freezing on the ocean, and there were still patches of ice here and there because I was up so early that they weren’t heating the roads yet.
Apex had set me on a route that had my heart in my throat every morning.
He said you’re getting better at stabilizing yourself on ice. My left foot skidded forward, and I went flying ass over tea kettle. My shoulder crunched on the sidewalk, and I lay in a heap.
Doesn’t feel like it, I returned.
Bad timing. Sorry.
I picked myself up and felt my ankle complain. “I should get this looked at,” I groaned.
I’ll plot a course to the—
—I know where it is. Think I’ve been there often enough.
I wouldn’t be much good if my ankle gave me problems and Malaki needed me to take over flying the helo.
The hospital wards were still quiet, even when I hobbled inside ours. I glanced around for someone. No one was here.
Unusual.
I moved to the main desk, standing there momentarily before Doctor Pillar stepped through the doors with Nurse Eina in tow. He frowned my way.
“Are you two ever not here?” I asked him.
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re one to talk. What have you done now?”
“Went for a flying lesson without my helo.” When he frowned again, I added, “Ice.”
“Ouch,” Nurse Eina said as she moved to my side and helped me into a cubical.
“Give me a minute,” Doctor Pillar said and left.
“Is something wrong?” I asked Nurse Eina.
“Don’t you watch the news?” She ran a hand through her hair, and I noted the knots, her general unkempt appearance, and the terrible dark bags under her eyes.
I climbed onto the bed and lifted my legs up. She then helped me take off my runners. “I don’t get much time to do anything but train, train.”
“Train,” she said, gently removing my sock. “I know. You’ve been putting your body and mind through its paces.”
“Yeah.” I let out a sigh. Nurse Eina moved my foot slightly, and I winced.
“Sore?”
“Yeah. So, the news? What’s going on?”
Nurse Eina looked up as she brought forward a 3D scanner, then ran it over my foot, ankle, and lower leg. “Started a few days ago,” she said. “There’s been fires out north of Tallis and Shore Farms.”
“Fires?” My stomach twisted at that thought. We were due out there again soon, just like any other weekend but this one. This one, we were team building, ugh. “Bad ones?”
“Yes,” she said and turned the 3D image for me to see. My foot spun in front of her. “No damage to the bones or ligaments, just a light sprain. I’ll get some extra gel for the nites. They’ll clear it up pretty soon.”
I watched her move away, and I slipped my sock back on. I needed my feet almost as much as my hands for flying a helo.
Doctor Pillar came back in. “Did you check his head?” he asked Nurse Eina.
“I didn’t”—I paused, clocking the niggling headache; it was stronger than earlier—“don’t think I hit it.”
“We have to check.”
“Okay.”
Nurse Eina came at me with the scanner once more. “The fire’s bad,” she said. “It’s spreading. They’ve got all the fire teams on it and all spare medical staff.”
“That’s why it’s so empty in here?”
She nodded. “They left yesterday. I’m guessing you didn’t notice the lack of helo flights in and out, either?”
“No.” I ran a hand over my head and felt a bump. I brought back a finger of blood.
“You did hit your head,” Doctor Pillar said. “Nothing broken, bar your skin—”
It was the way his face paled, though. “Something wrong?”
“Unusual,” he said. “Are you eating okay?”
“I never stop eating,” I said. “If I eat any more, I’ll never leave the canteens.”
“Showing a lack of some nutrients and growth…” He trailed off again, put my results down and wandered away.
“He’s a lot on his mind,” Nurse Eina added. “I’ll get you some extra nutrients for the nites all around.”
“Okay.”
Once they were both gone, I turned the news stations on in the corner of my vision. A young woman came on screen with her name displayed at the bottom: Janet Lester.
I didn’t hear the start of what she was saying, but she was pretty animated as she waved behind her. “—firefighters have been unable to put the fires out as yet. The flames are hot, and the winds are pushing everything toward Artem. At the moment, they’ve managed to keep them where they are. They’re pulling out all the stops for this. With less than fifty miles between them and Shore Farm, this is a fight they will not let go of. They can’t let it go.”
Fifty miles seemed a lot, but then again, it wasn’t compared to the size of Artem.
I brought up my detailed maps from Shore and Tallis Farms. Then, with the help of her location on the news and my knowledge of the area, I pinpointed where she and the fires were.
I sent a message over to Malaki.
Me - Watch the news. We’re going to get called in before the weekend. Get on it and learn as much as you can about firefighting.
Mal - Already on it. The news will filter down in a few days, but they will go through the motions and ranks first. If we ever get called up, it’s bad.
Me - It already looks bad.
Mal - I know. I’m keeping a really close eye on it.
Me - How long do they usually last?
Mal - Kind of depends on what the source is, easily a good few weeks. We’d only be called up as last resort, we’re not trained.
In a few weeks’ time, it was my birthday, not that I expected to do much. Maybe just get burgers and beer, real beer, maybe on the mainland? And ugh…I tapped back.
Me - You know I’ve got this stupid team-building trip coming up.
Mal - You’re going. You need to do this. Prove to everyone you’re not going to let rumors get to you. You are worthy of being on either of our fireteams, and at my side.
Me - I’ll try.
Mal - No try. Do.
