Nemesis Boxset Page 23

  “My name is Nova,” the medic says. “I’m gonna try to fix you up, but I have a feeling I might have to take you into the surgical wing. I have a team who assists me with cases like these. Do you consent to us working on you?”

  “Are you and your team good at your job?”

  “Well, we can’t make the situation worse, can we?” Nova asks with another chuckle. “I’ve seen a lot of opalite wounds in this business. I’m successful at curing them about ninety-five percent of the time.”

  “And the other five percent?”

  “I assume you already know what happened to them.”

  A great ruckus interrupts the morbid conversation. By the sound of it, several council members have stormed into the med bay to follow Vega. I try to pick the voices out of the crowd, but I don’t know everyone very well yet. Not to mention, everyone’s talking at once.

  “Someone seize her,” says one person. My guess is Quell. “She needs to be put in holding. She hasn’t sworn the oath yet.”

  “Ophelia’s eyesight is more important than your damn oath,” Vega shoots back.

  “I agree.” That voice I would recognize anywhere. It’s Claudia’s. She comes to stand near the medical table I’m lying on. I feel my sister’s callused hand grip my arm. “We need to worry about Ophelia first.”

  Orion jumps in. “Ophelia is in good hands. She’s being taken care of. That means, unfortunately, that Miss Major must come with us.”

  Vega grunts, and a sudden surge knocks into the medical table, as if someone’s made the mistake of advancing on Vega. She’s not one to go easy in a fight. A punch lands with a hard thwack, and I hear the crack of a nose breaking. The target—another Veritas agent—groans and whines. Vega’s flight jacket rustles as she pulls back her arm to land another hit. A blaster whirs, the telltale sound of someone getting reading to fire.

  “No!” I jump off the table with only a vague idea of Vega’s position. I feel for the closest bodies. The first one is Claudia’s, who tries to hold me back. I rip free of her and reach Vega, instantly recognizing her curly hair and soft skin beneath my fingers. “Don’t hurt her. If you do, I swear I’ll never perform a single mission for you. I won’t even dig for tubers in the jungle like the kids do.”

  The med bay goes quiet. The blasters power down. Vega relaxes beneath my grip.

  “You’ve already sworn the oath,” Quell reminds me. “You’re obligated to serve Veritas.”

  “I’m obligated not to betray Veritas,” I counter. “But you can’t force me to do anything against my will.”

  “Ophelia.” Claudia approaches me from behind, laying her hands on either side of my waist to let me know where she is. “You have to let them take Vega. Those are the rules.”

  “I want Vega with me.”

  “I know,” Claudia says. “I understand the two of you have been through a lot together, and I’m not saying that Vega will have to stay in holding until the end of the war. But for right now, until we figure out what to do with her, she has to go.”

  “I won’t put my best friend in a cell.”

  “It’s not a cell,” Halley chimes in. “It’s a little dormitory room. Pretty cozy. Got a bed and a shower and some workout equipment. There’s even a sauna. It’s not like prison.”

  “How do you know?” I ask her.

  “Spent a lot of time there when I first got here.”

  “Vega?” I say.

  She squeezes my hand. “I don’t want to leave you with a bunch of people you don’t know, but if this is the quickest way to get you immediate treatment, I’ll go with them.”

  “I’ll stay with Ophelia,” Claudia offers. “She’s my sister. She’ll be okay with me.”

  “It’s the best we can offer unless Vega takes the oath,” Halley adds.

  Quell huffs from across the room. “Frankly, I’m not sure we should offer Miss Major the oath again, considering how poorly she received it to begin with.”

  “Shut up, Quell,” Halley and Claudia chorus.

  “Friendly reminder I’m blind,” I say, my tone drier than a desert planet. “We should probably do something about that soon.”

  “My patient’s right,” Nova says. A curtain slides across, probably to block me off from the rest of the council. Only Vega and Claudia remain close to me. “We need to get her into surgery as quickly as possible to remove the opalite from her body. Claudia can stay, but everyone else needs to go.”

  Nova, it seemed, is the boss in the med bay. The council members mutter under their breath, but no one dares to challenge her order. Footsteps fade as they exit, but I hear one pair of boots pause by the door.

  “Holmes,” Quell says. I have a feeling he’s not talking to me. “If she survives, she’s your responsibility. After all, you’re the one who brought her here.”

  “She’s an asset, not a liability,” my sister replies. “Get out, Quell.”

  Quell leaves, and the med bay is quiet once again.

  Nova clears your throat. “I’ll give you two a minute. I need to gather my team anyway.”

  She exits too, leaving me and Claudia alone in a room for the first time in several years. Neither one of us knows what to say. For the longest time, I viewed Claudia as the perfect IA Defense officer. It’s difficult to reverse that view, even with the evidence right in front of me.

  “So,” she says, hesitant. “You can’t see anything?”

  “Not even a twinkle.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Absolutely terrified.”

  I sense her moving closer to my face. Her breath tickles my cheek.

  “This wound looks awful, O,” she says, her tone tinged with worry. “It’s turning blue.”

  I swallow the nerves building up like a knotted rope in my throat. “Does it glitter in the light?”

  Claudia rifles around and clicks on a flashlight. “Yeah, why?”

  “It means the opalite is active in my bloodstream.”

  “You’re not going to die, O.”

  “I didn’t say I was.” I close my eyes. It feels better to pretend the darkness is simply the inside of my eyelids. “But I don’t think I’m going to get my vision back.”

  A parade of footsteps comes into the med bay. Claudia’s weight shifts off the exam table, presumably to make room for Nova’s team of medics. Nova herself—I now recognize her floral scent—stands closest to my head.

  “Okay, Ophelia,” she says. “I know you can’t see them, but this is my team. Rigel, Astrid, and Gal.”

  I wave to the general space. “Hi, everyone. Ophelia Holmes. Known rebel. In a bit of a blind spot right now.”

  The medics reward me with a weak chuckle.

  “We’re going to take you into the surgical room,” Nova says. “Your sister can wait out here. That okay with you, Claudia?”

  “I guess so,” Claudia replies. “Take good care of her. We can’t afford to lose her.”

  Something tightens in my throat at my sister’s last comment. It’s not a declaration of love or regret regarding our seven-year separation. It’s a war strategy. Veritas needs me to be the face of their mission, whether I can see the happenings of battle or not.

  “I’ll do my best,” Nova replies. “Let’s go, everyone.”

  The medics wheel my exam table away. The wheels ride over the uneven stone floor, and the vibrations travel up through the metal and into my bones. I savor my other senses—the cold surface of the metal, the squeaking of the table’s right back wheel, and the bitter taste of opalite on my tongue. It’s getting worse.

  The surgical room is freezing. One of the medics lays a heavy blanket on top of me. The weight and the warmth are surely meant for comfort, but it only makes me feel claustrophobic.

  “Ophelia, have you ever had any kind of surgery before?” Nova asks. Medical instruments clink around as everyone prepares for duty.

  “No, but my father’s had a lot,” I answer. “I remember some of his recovery process.”

  “Your
father was a legend, you know.” Nova’s voice is muffled now, like she’s put on a protective mask. “At the time, the tech used to repair his legs was brand new, but one of the things I like so much about my profession is how quickly we progress medically. Since your father’s operations and rehabilitation, we’ve improved several techniques.”

  “Good to know,” I say.

  “Surgery isn’t what it used to be on Earth,” Nova continues as the buzz of a laser starts up. “We don’t use knives to hack into you. That kind of thing was downright barbaric. Nowadays, we can fix almost anything with nanobots, medication, or—if we have to—laser work. Usually, in cases of opalite poisoning, we limit treatment to Purifiers, which I’m sure you’ve used before?”

  “Many times,” I say, regarding the little black pills that cleanse opalite and other foreign substances from the human body. “But when I worked aboard The Impossible, they weren’t often available.”

  “Understandable,” Nova says. “Did you work with opalite often?”

  “Yes. I traded and shaped it for Saint Rita.”

  One of the medics snorts then grunts, like someone else has just hit him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. I can’t help but grin.

  “Judge me all you want,” I say. “But Saint Rita was the pirate queen. I learned a lot during my time on her crew.”

  “No judgement here,” Nova says, but I can imagine the glare she’s shooting at the snorting member of her team. “More gathering information on your exposure to opalite. This wound is deep and well-saturated, but it shouldn’t have caused you to go blind unless there was already a build-up of opalite in your system. We’ll have to go in very carefully to see if we can evacuate enough of the poison to get your sight back. It won’t be comfortable. You may remain awake if you like, but I normally suggest medically-induced slumber for this sort of thing.”

  “Put me to sleep, Doc.”

  When I wake up, I don’t open my eyes right away. Light filters through my eyelids. I see the redness of my blood vessels. That’s a good sign. I take a deep breath and take a look.

  My right eye is fine. Things are a little blurry, but the more I blink, the clearer the world becomes. My left eye is still practically blind. Though I can kind of make out vague shapes, it’s as if a dark gray filter has been applied over my pupil. For the first time, I get an actual look at the med bay. Like the community building, it’s made out of stacked black stones. I was right about the equipment. Each exam table is stamped with IA’s official logo. There are twenty or so beds available. As of right now, only two of them are occupied—mine and one on the opposite end of the bay. From here, all I can see of the other patient is a tuft of purple hair.

  Nova sits at a desk near the door, examining something through a microscope. My imagination’s rendering of her couldn’t have been more wrong. She’s not petite at all. Rather, she’s a broad woman with even broader shoulders. Her hair curls close to her scalp in a way that reminds me of Vega’s.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake,” she says when I sit up. She comes over and shines a flashlight into my eyes. “How’s your vision? What can you see?”

  “Right eye works fine,” I report. “Left one, not so much.”

  Nova purses her lips and puts away her flashlight. “That’s what I was afraid of. Ophelia, your veins are saturated with opalite. You’re suffering from long-term poisoning. We were able to clear enough out of your system to bring your right eye back, but it’s only temporary. You’ll lose your sight again the more the opalite circulates through your system.”

  “How long do I have before that happens?”

  Nova lifts her shoulders. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “You’ve never seen a case of opalite poisoning?”

  “No, I’ve seen plenty of opalite cases,” Nova replies. “But not to this extent. Ophelia, the amount of opalite in your body should have killed you a long time ago. I meant I’ve never seen someone survive with such elevated levels before.”

  “So low-key,” I say, “you’re trying to tell me that I’m dying.”

  Nova takes a deep breath and blows it out. “Honey, when we drew blood for testing, it literally sparkled. It’s like someone threw an arts and crafts party inside your body and forgot to clean up.”

  “Well, I do like to be festive.”

  “Jokes are a good defense mechanism,” Nova says with a sad smile, “but you’re going to have to face this, Miss Holmes. Do you want me to call in your sister? She left earlier this evening for a bite to eat and to get some sleep. That reminds me, are you hungry?”

  I’m starving. My stomach grumbles and moans, but I can’t fathom eating anything while I’m still trying to digest the news of my impending death.

  “No, don’t tell my sister,” I say. “Don’t tell anyone. Veritas won’t send me on any missions if they think I’ll croak during them.”

  “I’m afraid they won’t send you on any missions anyway,” Nova replies. “Not with that eye.”

  “Why not?” I demand, indignant.

  “Have you ever fought with one eye?” she asks. “Forget fighting. Have you ever walked around with only one good eye? It’s not as easy as you might think. You’re going to go through quite the adjustment period.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  To prove my point, I swing my legs off the exam table and stand up. Immediately, I recognize my mistake. I’m still woozy from whatever they used to put me to sleep, and I can’t clock anything on the left hand side of my body. My perspective is way off, which throws my balance way off. I stumble and collide with a bedside table, knocking a glass vase to the floor. It shatters, and the unfamiliar purple flowers shed petals like raindrops. The other patient in the med bay rolls over.

  “Do you mind?” she calls. “Trying to sleep here.”

  “Sorry!” I say. “I’m half-blind.”

  “And I only have one foot,” the other patient replies. “Some people get all the luck.”

  She rolls over and goes back to sleep. Nova helps me to my feet.

  “How long?” I ask her. “Until the opalite kills me?”

  “You should already be dead,” she reminds me. “But your body seems to have created a defense against the opalite in your blood. There’s something strange about you, Ophelia. Your body is expelling opalite, slowly but surely. It’s not fast enough to save you, but it’s enough to give you some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “I’d have to study you for a while longer to give you a better picture,” Nova replies. “But my guess is no more than a year or two.”

  3

  It’s the middle of the night, but I can’t stay in the med bay a second longer. The smell alone turns my stomach, and the patient with the purple hair and apparently only one leg keeps muttering nonsense in her sleep. Nova’s gone to her office. Whether she has a bed there or if she’s doing more research is a mystery. No one’s visited me all afternoon, and Nova wouldn’t let me leave. She kept insisting she needed someone from the council to clear me before I could go. No one ever showed up, except a young girl around the age of ten who delivered a few meals for Nova and her patients. The food on Adrestia is surprisingly good. The roots the children collected earlier had been roasted and salted. Some sort of wild game bird served as the protein portion of the meal. It was better than most of the things I’d eaten aboard The Impossible, but it definitely didn’t measure up to the food on Harmonia. Then again, the most privileged people live on Harmonia, so they demand the highest quality in everything, including food.

  Carefully, I step out of bed. The med bay is dark except for the silver streaks of moonlight filtering in from the row of windows behind the beds. It doesn’t help me much. I can’t move six inches without losing my balance. I probe the side of my head with a tender gesture. A fleshy substance meets my fingers. It’s a skin patch, an artificial covering that mimics the biology of the body. The opalite wound on my face wasn’t a serious one, but be
cause of its proximity to my eyes, it needed special treatment.

  My first order of business is to locate Vega. I have no idea where the holding dormitory is, but I’m determined to find it. I get dressed in the old clothes I was wearing when we escaped from IA and creep toward the med bay exit.

  “You’re supposed to be asleep,” murmurs the patient with purple hair.

  “So are you,” I shoot back.

  “I am!”

  I leave the patient to her strange dreams and tiptoe out of the med bay. Thankfully, Nova doesn’t hear the door creak as I make my break for it. Outside, the camp is quiet and dark. My boots sink into the black sand underfoot as I try to get my bearings. I have to do a complete three-sixty to get a full download of the camp. My bad eye makes everything look a little skewed. Without a light, it’s going to be mighty hard to navigate. Then I remember my Veritas gloves.

  “Come on,” I grumble as I pull them out of my back pocket and onto my hands. “These things gotta come with some kind of illumination setting.”

  Sure enough, the palms begin to glow silver, emitting an eerie but effective light. I hold my hands out in front of me to illuminate the ground. It reflects off of glittery particles in the black sand. Satisfied, I continue on.

  I peek through the windows of each building, confirming some of what I already know about the camp. The buildings closest to the center of the makeshift city are for community use. I come across a chow hall, an indoor trading market for rainy days, a storage unit that houses a multitude of weapons, and the gathering hall. Past the larger buildings, I find smaller houses, dormitories, and one-man tents. The residents of Adrestia live however they please, whether it’s on their own, with their families, or with other roommates. I catch sight of all types of people through the windows. They all sleep peacefully, as if they don’t know we’re at the beginning of a war. No one stands guard. I guess life on Adrestia is protected enough that the people here don’t worry about being attacked. Personally, I think it’s a mistake. Though Veritas has employed a disorientation shield around the planet to prevent outsiders from landing here, there’s always a chance someone’s found the technology to get around defenses like that. The lack of watch guards is irresponsible in my book.