“You mean he’s already outside CradleCorp? How did he even do that without running into a single one of us?”
I made it possible. Now you must hurry.
“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
Aaron Blake is valuable to me. Should he be caught or killed, I will make sure you are sentenced to death per Auroran law for the murder of Jonathan Young, Navigational Engineer of the trader ship
Titania
.
“Fine. But if I do this, I want that evidence gone.”
It will be done.
“How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
I do not lie.
The doors behind Barrow unlocked suddenly, and the images projected on the wall vanished. Against his will, Barrow was impressed. Whoever it was he was dealing with, he had to be powerful. Barrow hurried out of the room and set off at a run toward the Skytrain. He couldn’t help but notice that every single security camera in CradleCorp turned slightly as he passed, following his progress with cold efficiency.
THE WORST
part was hiding the blood from everyone on the train.
Rigel sat alone at the very back of the last carriage, clutching his shoulder and hoping the pressure was doing something to stop the wound from bleeding, although the flow had almost stopped by then. He’d been relieved to discover that he’d been shot with another rubber bullet, but the point-blank range had made the impact seem like the real thing, and the damage was scary. His skin was raw around the spot where he had been shot, red flesh showing through, and a dark areola of bruised tissue surrounded it.
Rigel had thought about asking for help the second he had gotten to Cradle Station, but then he had seen several uniformed CradleCorp security guards spreading out over the grounds, approaching as they headed in his direction, and he had kept his mouth shut in terrified silence. It had taken all of his willpower not to dash into the doors of the Skytrain the second they opened, and only when he was inside did he breathe a sigh of relief.
Then he had faced a dilemma. Did he tell somebody that he had just been shot, or should he keep quiet until he got to the hospital? At first he had been so scared that he had walked up all the way to the front of the train, meaning to speak with the driver about it, maybe ask him to call for an emergency ambulance or something. But he had found the door locked, and nobody had answered his loud pounding on the heavy glass. Peering inside, Rigel was not even sure there was a driver. He had no idea whether the Skytrain was controlled automatically, but he couldn’t see anyone inside the control room.
He had walked to the back of the train, clutching his shoulder, wincing at the pain with every step he took. He realized with a sinking feeling that if he told anyone who was currently in the train what had happened, the most probable thing would be that they would call emergency services, and he would be rerouted back to CradleCorp. The company had a small clinic, and it was much closer than the hospitals downtown. Besides, everybody who had gotten onto the train along with Rigel either worked at CradleCorp or was in some way connected to it, and something deep in his gut told him it was best to get as far away as possible from the madmen who had tried to kill him.
The train rattled on, quickly approaching the city, and Rigel gripped his shoulder a bit more tightly. He could feel a warm wetness beneath his palm, although it wasn’t spreading. He was terrified. He doubted that the wound itself was fatal, but it hurt like hell now that the adrenaline rush of escaping was wearing off, and his bunched-up jacket did a mediocre job of concealing it. Rigel looked around fearfully, shifting in his seat so his wounded shoulder would be hidden as much as possible. He did not want to be discovered, not yet. Once he got into the city, he could get out at Hospital Station and go into the ER himself. Even if the hospital staff reported the gunshot wound to the police, they’d be able to protect him. He hoped. And then….
He could not think that far ahead. His mind felt jammed, stuck in his current predicament and going back to his mad flight from CradleCorp in little snatches of images and voices. He kept remembering Richard Tanner giving orders to take him out. He remembered the unreality of speaking to Atlas outside of Otherlife and the strange things it had told him. But most of all, he remembered the loud explosion of the gun and the searing pain when the bullet had hit him.
Rigel realized he was shivering, and he tried to get a grip on himself. It wasn’t easy. As the Skytrain stopped and then moved ahead while they passed more and more stations, the bloodstain beneath Rigel’s hand started growing again no matter how hard he pressed against the shoulder. He once tried to remove his hand from the spot and shift his grip, but it hurt so badly that he cried out, drawing attention to himself.
The train glided into the city, but it wasn’t fast enough. People began staring. Rigel tried to avoid their eyes, but he caught two men looking openly at him from the other side of the carriage. A woman laden with shopping bags, who had been about to sit on the other side of his bench, saw that he was bleeding and walked away quickly, disappearing down the next carriage. The whispers began, and a young boy pointed at him rather obviously. His mother swatted down his hand, but too late. Those people, who had not been aware of Rigel, now turned around and saw what was going on.
Two more stops to the hospital. Rigel couldn’t stop shaking. The pain was getting worse, and when he moved in his seat to get ready to sprint out of the carriage when they reached his stop, he was horrified to see that he had left a bright red smear of blood right behind him, where he had been leaning against the wall.
His carriage was emptying quickly, and at the next stop, many people left in a hurry. There were still some curious onlookers, though, and an older man with a white mustache made a beeline for Rigel when he saw that he was hurt.
“Are you okay, son?” he asked Rigel.
“Fine,” Rigel grunted.
“You don’t look okay. Do you need help? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
He had already taken out his mobile and was about to dial when Rigel stopped him.
“Don’t.”
“Look, it’s okay. The most important thing is to get you to a hospital. No questions asked.” He nodded to Rigel’s shoulder. “That looks pretty bad. Did somebody stab you?”
Rigel shook his head, then regretted the movement when it pulled on the side of his shoulder.
“Was it a slum gang?”
Rigel looked at the man. It suddenly occurred to him that he must look like some kind of criminal, bleeding all over the train in a corner instead of calling for help like a normal person would do. But they were almost at the station….
The older man dialed quickly, taking Rigel’s silence as a yes, but the train was already pulling into Hospital Station, and Rigel rushed out the doors before anybody could stop him. He hurried to the hospital, walking out of the station and then through the wide street that led to the ER. He was beginning to feel a little dizzy, and the merciless heat of the sun was not doing him any favors. By the time he reached the air-conditioned reception in the ER, he was swaying on his feet, and his head hurt so badly that it pounded with every heartbeat. Strangely, the pain in his shoulder had subsided a little. Rigel didn’t know whether to be worried about that or not.
He dragged himself to the nearest nurse, who took one look at him and rushed him to an emergency room, calling a doctor along the way. They made him lie down on a stretcher and started talking very fast as they wheeled him around, demanding to know what had happened and where he was hurt.
“Shoulder,” Rigel said over the din. “He shot me in the shoulder.”
Somebody shone a bright light into his pupils, and Rigel saw a nurse cutting away his clothes around the wound. It hurt, particularly when she pulled the damp fabric away from his raw flesh, but when his wound was exposed, the frantic tone of the orders the doctor was giving subsided significantly, and everybody around Rigel relaxed a little bit. Rigel chose to think of that as a good sign.
“Not too deep. He will need a nanodrone injection anyway,” the doctor was telling the head nurse. “The muscle is torn, there may be superficial nerve damage, and he’s lost some blood already. Sedative?”
“Right away, doctor,” somebody said. A few seconds later, Rigel felt the sharp prick of a needle on his other arm.
“Good. Now the drones. One milliliter of point-twenty micron repair units.”
“Administering.”
There was another injection, on his bad arm, but this time it hurt a lot more than the first one. Rigel cried out and tried to get up, but strong hands held him down.
“Easy, now,” somebody was telling him. Rigel wished the bright light weren’t in his eyes so he could see who was talking to him. “It won’t hurt for long. You will sleep through the worst of it.”
From the point of the injection, a burning sensation spread up Rigel’s injured side. It intensified with every second, feeling as if liquid fire were pushing its way slowly up his veins. Rigel struggled, particularly when the burning began to approach his gunshot wound, but he found himself getting weaker at the same time, feeling drowsy…. The pain diminished, as if it had been a loud noise and somebody had put a muffler on it. Rigel’s eyes lost focus. He closed them, and everything went black.
RIGEL WOKE
up to angry voices ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes groggily and was puzzled to see a spotless white ceiling overhead, with bright flickering lights that he did not recognize. He tried to move, but an unexpected, painful tightness in his right shoulder halted his motion, and he fell back down onto the pillows.
Then he remembered. He reached up to the wound gingerly, since he couldn’t see it directly. There was a bandage over it, and when Rigel pressed down, it hurt but nowhere near as badly as a few minutes ago, when he had stumbled into the hospital. Or had it been a few minutes?
Rigel lifted his other hand to look at the time. It was almost one o’clock, and Rigel was sure it had been before noon when he had finally gotten onto the Skytrain. So he hadn’t been in here for long. Whatever they had given him had worn off fast.
He pressed down on the wound again and then tried to move his arm, lifting it ever so slowly. The shoulder area felt tight, but the nanodrones had done their job. Rigel remembered one time Misha had broken her leg in a cycling accident out in the desert, and her father had paid for a nano injection, and she had been walking the very next day. It hadn’t been cheap, though. Good thing Rigel had full medical coverage debited directly from his parents’ trust fund.
Rigel sat up slowly, looking around. He was alone apart from an elderly man who was asleep in the bed on the other side of the room. Somehow, with his arm healing and being safe in the hospital, Rigel’s wild flight from CradleCorp seemed a bit silly. It had surely been an accident that he had been shot, after all. How could he have thought people were going to kill him just because of some random messages from something that claimed to be called Atlas? It was stupid. It seemed like a bad dream now, something that had made sense in the heat of the moment but not anymore. He had stolen the quantum drive, that was a fact, and maybe he shouldn’t have broken into CradleCorp like that to begin with. But he would give back the stupid drive. He had been shot by accident by a security guard, and CradleCorp would back off in order to avoid a trial for the shooting.
Rigel got up from the bed, feeling surprisingly strong again. His shoulder pained him slightly, but he tried not to move his right arm too much, and it was okay. He wanted to get dressed. The less time he spent in the hospital, the smaller the bill would be. He looked around for his clothes and found them, folded neatly. There was even a clean white T-shirt to replace his bloodstained shirt.
He was zipping up his pants when his phone rang. Rigel picked up quickly, not wanting to disturb the other man.
“Hello?”
“Aaron?” Misha said.
“Oh, hey, Misha. What’s up?” Rigel answered.
“Just wanted you to know I’m having some friends over tonight for a bit of a party.”
“A party? What for?”
She sighed dramatically. “Does one need a reason? Other than the fact, perhaps, that my father bought me a trip to Haven Prime?”
“Did he?” Rigel asked, grinning.
“Yes!” Misha answered with a squeal of excitement. “It’s going to be insane! We leave next month, and I thought we should celebrate!”
“Sounds good,” Rigel said. He moved his right arm by accident, and the slight pain made him wince.
There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. “You don’t sound nearly as excited as you should be,” Misha said. “I demand more enthusiasm, Aaron. It’s my dream we’re talking about, going to the only civilized city left in the world. I thought it would matter to you! You should come along too. Use that money you inherited, live a little! I even took the liberty of getting the number of this really cute pilot I met at the passport agency. He’s just your type, Aaron….”
“Uh, sorry, Misha,” Rigel interrupted. “It’s just that I’ve kind of been shot.”
Another pause. “What?”
“Yeah. I’m at the hospital right now. Shoulder wound. They gave me some nanos, and I think I am well enough to go back home, but I’m still kind of freaked out.”
“Shot like with a gun? Aaron, don’t joke about things like that.”
“I’m not! I really did get shot. It wasn’t an accident either. Long story, but it happened in CradleCorp HQ. One of the security guards got me.”
“Do… do you want me to go pick you up?” Misha asked, her voice reflecting genuine concern.
“No, I’ll take the train. Don’t worry, Misha, it’s no big deal….”
“No big deal?” Misha asked. “Aaron, you just got shot! And on the day they summoned you to that thing with their lawyers too. Oh!”
“What?”
“I… it’s nothing. I just heard glass breaking. It was probably downstairs, that couple with their psycho cat. Anyway, do you realize what this means?”