Phoenix Rising (Book Two of The Icarus Trilogy) (7 page)

The young Crow opened his eyes and felt the sting of the biotic fluid.  He wasn’t a fan of that feeling, but it was better for his eyes to adjust to the coming light now rather than when he was surrounded by it.  He watched as the hatch into the resurrection chamber started to draw open.  The crack of light hit his pupils and his eyelids twitched.  His eyes were sensitive things, never fully exposed to light while held in the storage area, but he reminded himself that it was better to do it now.

After only a few minutes, Jenkins was drowning in the light.  His cell had been drawn into the resurrection chamber and within a moment the biotic fluid started to drain from his cell.  He could feel the cold air as it touched wet skin and he finally felt alive again.  The biotic fluid was heated to the same temperature as his body and caused a state of sensory deprivation.  That’s why it had made so much sense to him that he had stopped existing after that first death; he couldn’t feel his body.

But now the cell was empty and he was laying against the back of the construct, which doubled as a clinic table once the cell slid into place.  Jenkins felt the gravity shifting as the loading arm tilted the chamber and set it down into the groove set into the resurrection chamber.  He could hear the hiss as the cell broke its seal and exposed him to the open air of the clinic.  The soldier shivered at the difference in temperature.  The front wall of the chamber rose open and Jenkins brought up his hands to wipe the biotic fluid out of his eyes.

When he opened them again he could see Dr. Kane already going through the resurrection checklist.  They had long since done away with that formality as Jenkins always resurrected perfectly.  It wasn’t worth the effort to go through every item.  The young soldier waited as the beautiful raven-haired doctor finished her tapping at the computer display and turned to face him.  Jenkins thought about all the dirty things he’d like to do to her if he got the chance. 

Charlotte walked over to the impatient soldier and sighed.  He was watching her already and she couldn’t stand it.  She had no sympathy for this man.  After their first few interactions Charlotte realized that he was completely different.  Jenkins had been a gentle, compassionate man who suffered far too much.  The man lying on the cell in front of her was a chauvinistic, insensitive killer.  He wasn’t worth her attention and she would have ignored him in any other circumstance.  The problem was that he had Jenkins’ face.

She pulled the strap from the back of his neck and brought it around so that it wouldn’t get in the way.  Without making eye contact Charlotte grabbed one end of the re-breather and pulled it from the soldier’s throat, not bothering to ask if he wanted sedatives.  With every other soldier Charlotte had taken great care not to hurt the person’s throat.  She had asked them if they were ready.  She didn’t bother with this version of Jenkins; she just pulled the thing out and set it aside.  She heard the soldier coughing and looked down to see him smiling.

“Jeez, doc, what did I ever do to you?”  Most soldiers weren’t able to speak so soon after a resurrection, but Jenkins and Carver had always greeted her courteously.  She had appreciated their behavior, but this crude man lying in front of her didn’t deserve that same respect.  She shrugged and motioned for him to sit up.

“I figured you wanted to breathe without a tube.  And I assumed you had done your throat exercises just like every other time,” she said in a detached manner.  The man chuckled and sat up in his cell.  She started to take off the electrodes which had stimulated the clone’s body since it had been created.

“Well, you know what they say about assuming, don’t ya, doc?”  Charlotte didn’t even look at the man.  She didn’t want to entertain his thoughts about being friendly.

“C’mon.  Ass?  You?  Me?  There’s a joke in there,” he said while the doctor did her best to ignore him.  He was doing his best to lighten the girl up, but she just wasn’t having it.  The soldier wondered what he needed to do in order for her to realize that she could use a good lay.  Jenkins sighed and let her continue her work.

Charlotte Kane had to do her best not to let this slave soldier ruin her memories of the real Jenkins.  She tried to tell herself that she was going to bring the soldier back; that this was just temporary.  Charlotte wouldn’t have to deal with this false Jenkins for much longer.  Albert and Laurence would be able to help her.

She made eye contact with the soldier.  He was smiling at her.  There was the difference.  Jenkins had never smiled at her for himself; he had always done it for her benefit.  Jenkins had been filled with sadness but he still tried to make her feel better.  This was just a selfish man.  She stood back up and looked at the soldier before nodding to the training briefs on the stand nearby.

“C’mon, let’s get to the training room.  No use putting it off.”

Jenkins watched as the doctor left the room; he appreciated the view.  The sociopath smiled as he got to his feet and followed her into the next room.  She had made eye contact with him.  It was progress.

He readied himself for another batch of pain.

-

Charlotte looked at the computer display as Jenkins ran on the treadmill.  He was wearing muscle stimulators over his entire body which would make him battle-ready before the day was out.  The running itself was just to keep blood flowing; the machines did all the work.  That meant nothing to the soldiers, who felt some of the worst pain imaginable as their muscles adapted to this cruel little world of theirs.

Charlotte didn’t bother to watch.  She had seen it so many times before and unlike all of the rest of the soldiers, the man running on the treadmill wasn’t even a real person.  He was just a product of corporate corruption.  Even if he didn’t earn her contempt he would still be fine.  He was always fine.

The woman shook her head as she thought about all the things Jenkins had experienced in his time on Eris.  She remembered all of the times she had brought him back to life with tears in his eyes.  Charlotte remembered the incident where he had gotten shot in the shoulder.  Dr. Kane had to kill him, then.  Thankfully, in the only act that could be considered mercy by the scientist, Hawkins had been around to deal the fatal poison. 

As she thought about that weasel of a man Charlotte’s eyelid twitched.  The Jenkins running in place in the next room only made her angry by proxy; he was just a constant reminder of the injustice rampant in the games.  Hawkins, on the other hand, was the most cruel and truly evil person she had ever met.  He treated people like they were walking experiments and for some it was the actual truth.  Poor Roberts was the focus of a pain study.  Hawkins was literally trying to break the man’s mind.

It had broken her world when she had learned the truth of that experiment.  That it was not only allowed, but
funded
by the Commission was the worst betrayal.  She had already had to come to grips with the horrors of these resurrections, but she was a doctor.  Charlotte was supposed to help people, but she was the assistant to a verifiable monster.  Hawkins gleefully tortured Roberts, killed soldiers with a smile and laughed at their misery.

And to top it all off he was the one responsible for changing Jenkins’ brain.

She had never wished harm on anyone before Hawkins.  Now all she wanted to do was cause him pain.  She had fantasized a few times about strapping the man down and cutting the man apart only to sew him back together.  She had woken from that nightmare disturbed by the images, but she never felt guilty about it.  The
scientist
deserved it.

But her revenge wasn’t important.  Hawkins would get his; she knew it.  There would have to be no justice in the entire universe if he didn’t die screaming.  That wasn’t something that she had to do.  The only goal she had on this asteroid was to help out this Initiative with whatever they wanted.  The system was broken, the world was in pieces and while good people were punished bad people were rewarded.  Charlotte couldn’t let herself be the monster that let it happen.

She was going to save Jenkins.  Somehow she was going to do it.  There had to be some way to change him back and she was going to find it.  Or someone else would.  She wouldn’t be able to sleep well until it happened.  He was important to her.  She didn’t think she loved him; that would be ridiculous.  But he meant something.  Ryan Jenkins was her redemption.

The good doctor looked back over at the soldier running in place.  She realized she didn’t hate him.  He didn’t have to die.  This artificial Jenkins was a crude man and she wouldn’t want to be around him if she could help it, but she could deal with his existence as long as the real Jenkins was back.  This soldier wasn’t the reason that Jenkins was gone and he had nothing to do with him staying gone.

The raven-haired woman resolved to treat the soldier better.  He deserved that, at the very least.

-

Jenkins sighed as he walked out of the clinic.  It was a marvelously boring walk back to the barracks, but in an effort to amuse himself he looked skyward.  Jenkins could see a couple of the asteroids from his position in the blasted landscape.  He guessed one was Demeter, one of the agricultural planets.  About two-thirds of their food came from that little rock up in the sky; the other third was grown on Eris, itself.  Only about half of the landmass was devoted to war, the other half to agriculture and the towns for the support staff.  Jenkins had never seen any of it, and likely never would, but it was a strange thought to think that there was peace somewhere on the little planet.

The orange asteroid towards the south had to be Solaria.  It was one of those resort planets that the Trade Union had made for its wealthiest members.  It was given a tropical theme and had nice balmy summer days every day.  Jenkins had heard stories that it was bathed in warm light for most of the daily cycle; night only lasted for a few hours.  Jenkins had dreamed of retiring there someday, just like every other kid in his gang.  Elysia was for those intellectual types that liked forests and grass.  Jenkins just wanted to hang out at beaches and pools and look at pretty girls all day.

Jenkins never had a chance.  In his early twenties the young man had been caught with a massive amount of stolen tech.  The young thief had been sentenced to slave labor on the farming asteroids or to come to the games.  Jenkins chose to fight on Eris and had regretted it.

But that choice no longer weighed on him like it had before.  He didn’t know why, but almost overnight he accepted it.  The food could be better and there could be more channels on the televisions, but it wasn’t so much harder than life on Earth.  In New Chicago, Jenkins had to fight for his daily life.  He had to steal and abuse hard-working men and women just to get by.  Here he died, but at least he was brought back.  Maybe he could end up like Carver and become a legend.  With enough cash he could make it to Solaria after all.

After a minute of walking Jenkins was able to see the Crows’ barracks in its full glory.  It felt like home.  He felt like he had always been meant to come here.

The young soldier walked through the doorway and continued on towards his room.  He passed by the entrance to the training yard and sighed.  He would ask Norris if he wanted to spar later when it was daylight.  He remembered it being a lot of fun, but the Englishman had started to avoid him on the topic.  Norris kept talking about how Abrams wanted to fight instead and that he was somewhat obligated.  Jenkins sneered at the thought, but he couldn’t blame the lanky bastard.  Abrams wasn’t the prettiest thing, but Norris got to have his fun with her.

Jenkins passed by Markham’s room and shook his head.  The soldier was largely useless.  He did enough to keep himself alive and he did what he could to kill people, but Jenkins couldn’t have a conversation with the man.  The slave soldier wouldn’t say more than a few words at a time and Jenkins thought that maybe the man had a lobotomy or something.  When he passed by the window in the door Jenkins could see the man tossing and turning with sweat glistening on his face.  Jenkins sighed as he realized that this soldier, too, was suffering from the pain of resurrection.  The artificial man looked down at his hands and realized he was somewhat blessed with his premature adoptions.  He never had to suffer like that.

The young soldier continued on past the mess hall and turned down the west hallway.  There wouldn’t be much longer to walk; the training rooms, library and common rooms were all in different areas of the complex.  He was thankful for that.  While he had less pain to experience, he still had to undergo a lot of the same processes.  He could feel his legs starting to give out from under him as he neared his room.

He opened the door and flicked on the light, not noticing the shadow standing near the window.  He assumed there wouldn’t be anything different from when he had left it that afternoon.  When he looked up to see the nearly-bald individual across the room he almost fell back against the door.  Then the realization kicked in and he suddenly wanted to know why he wasn’t alone.

“Goldstein, what the hell are you doing in my room in the darkness?  You can masturbate in your own room, you know.”  Jenkins let go of his hostility almost immediately after realizing who had been standing there.  Goldstein was one of the few men in the entire building who could appreciate a little humor, even if he was also newly-resurrected.

“Oh, I plan to,” Goldstein said as he turned his back to the wall and leaned against it.  “But I wanted to talk to you,” the merchant stated before looking at his new fingernails.  Jenkins knew the black-haired man was the king of the black market, but the artificial soldier had yet to find anything he was missing on the asteroid.  The young soldier was content and that was not in the merchant’s vocabulary.

“And what did you want to talk about?  Looking to expand your business?” Jenkins asked as he walked up to his desk and placed his weight on the top.  There was no reason to be stand-offish and uncomfortable during this conversation.  Jenkins looked at the merchant expectantly and gripped the curved edges of the desk absent-mindedly.  Goldstein tilted his head and scoffed at the thought.