counting on.
The guard laid her gently in her hospital bed, cringing as she groaned in pain. It wasn’t fake—her leg seemed to hurt more now than it had climbing the stairs. She tried to arrange the blanket over her legs, but even that much motion brought tears to her eyes. The guard moved her legs for her, then turned off the lights and left. Kira closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and forced herself to sit up.
Never underestimate me.
The regen box was still in the room, and Kira gave herself another treatment—a third in less than eight hours, accelerating her cell growth far past the point of safety. It would cause long-term damage, but in the short term it would let her walk. She peeked out the door and smiled grimly. Her wound was so bad, and her walking so debilitated, that the guard hadn’t even stayed to watch her.
She found Marcus in the cafeteria, staring silently at a tray of untouched rice. Will he even help? He has to. She inched slowly toward him across the empty floor. “Hey.”
He looked up, eyes wide with shock, and leaped to his feet. “Where have you been? I came in as soon as they reopened the building, and you weren’t in your room—I tore the building upside down until they finally made me come in here and wait.” He looked her up and down, frowning in renewed concern. “How on earth did you get in here? You can barely walk.”
“Magic,” she said coolly. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“I need an MRI.”
He frowned again. “They won’t give you one?”
“I want you to do it.”
“Why?”
“I want you to hold my hand while it runs.”
“I . . . okay.” He grimaced, obviously confused. “Wouldn’t you rather have a DORD, they’re so much better—”
“I need an MRI.”
“Then let me find someone to run the scan while I—”
“Just you,” she said firmly. “Just you and me.”
Marcus nodded, his face worn and worried, but there was a look in his eye—he was starting to pick up on what she was doing. “Okay, sure.” He offered his arm and she took it gratefully, staggering alongside him back into the main hallway.
“What’s really going on?” he whispered.
“Call it a medical hunch. I want to see something.” She hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out what to say to him. They hadn’t spoken since his proposal.
He walked in silence, and she did the same. After everything I’ve done to him, will he even trust me anymore?
They made their way down the hall to the radiology center and found a private room. Marcus eased her onto the exam table, and she let out a gasp as the weight came off her leg. She felt like she’d been running a marathon through a sea of broken glass. The MRI machine was smaller than the DORD in her lab—just a doughnut instead of a full-body box, and not nearly as powerful—but its electromagnetic field was exactly what she needed.
“I need to go turn it on,” said Marcus. He ran to the viewing room, fiddled with the controls, and Kira took a deep breath. This is it. This is either the beginning, or the end. The machine hummed to life, the powerful magnetic field washing over her, and she reached out her hand as Marcus came back.
“We don’t have much time, so just listen,” said Kira, leaning back while the MRI ran its sequence. “Mkele has me under heavy surveillance, and I am almost certainly wearing some kind of listening device. The field from this machine will disrupt it, but I don’t know how much time we’ll have before his goons get suspicious.” She glanced over at him, and then faced forward again. “Do you trust me?”
“What?”
“Do you trust me?” She felt him staring at her, but she kept her eyes forward.
“Yes. Of course I trust you. What’s going on?”
“The Senate set the bomb that blew up my lab. They killed Shaylon and threatened me. This entire thing—Samm, the studies, the bomb—has all been a ploy to generate enough fear, aimed in a precise direction, to cement their power over the island. Now they’re using this scenario in order to—” She dropped her eyes, then found her courage and finally looked at him. “Marcus, they’re going to kill Samm.”
She saw something play across his face. Whether it was horror or shock or jealousy, she couldn’t tell. His eyes flicked up toward the ceiling, then slowly turned back to her.
“Kira,” he said, “they were always going to kill it. To kill . . . Samm. You know this.” His voice was even and controlled, enough that she knew he must have been repressing something powerful. “Besides, why would they blow up their own people? Their own hospital?”
“Because it’s part of their plans,” said Kira. “I could never figure out why I got the assignment to study Samm, but this must have been it. I’m just a plague baby to them, the least experienced medic and the most expendable. If the bomb had killed me, they could have used me as a martyr, but since I lived, they offered me a role as their figurehead; the brave young scientist who survived the Partial attack.”
“The Partials set the bomb?”
“The Senate set the bomb, I told you that. But they’re going to blame Samm, they’re going to kill him, and they’re going to use his death to rally support.” She begged him with her eyes, willing him to believe. “They told Shaylon to go to the window, Marcus. They told him to stand right next to the wall before they blew it up.”
“No,” said Marcus, shaking his head. “It was the Voice—they’ve been attacking East Meadow for weeks, there’s probably at least one cell of them here in the city.” But as he was speaking, she could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.
“Did anyone actually see them?” asked Kira. “Did anyone actually attack the hospital, or did the military just say they did to cover their own tracks?”
Marcus stared at her, saying nothing.
“I know it sounds crazy,” said Kira, but Marcus cut her off.
“No, it’s not crazy. Coming from Xochi it would sound crazy, but from you . . .” He took her hand. “I trust you, Kira. If you say that they’re trying to kill you, then I believe that they’re trying to kill you.”
Kira closed her eyes, praying to anyone who would listen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. She looked at Marcus and spoke quickly. “I don’t know how much longer we have before someone comes to see why the listening bug isn’t working.” She took a deep breath. “We need to break him out—I’ll explain everything later, but that’s our goal: We get him out, we take him north, and we follow him home. They’re dying, just like we are, and they’ve offered a truce. We’re going to take them up on it.”
Marcus
