Authors: Kyra Anderson
Isa’s scream pierced the air again and
the tears quickly fell down Kailynn’s face. She flinched away from the noise.
“Kailynn,” Rayal said quickly, “I’m on my
way out to you. I’ll get Dr. Busen and Remus, okay? We’ll be out there as soon
as we can.”
“She can’t wait that long!” Kailynn
screamed.
“Yes, she can,” Rayal said. “Even if we
were there, there is nothing we can do to stop this. It has to take its
course.”
“What is it?!” Kailynn wailed.
“Venus is punishing her for granting
Trid’s citizenship, I’m sure,” Rayal said. “I have to hang up, Kailynn. But
stay with her. Once she stops moving, you can touch her. Until then, don’t move
her. Don’t do anything other than make sure she doesn’t hit any furniture.”
“I can’t just—”
“You have to, Kailynn!” Rayal barked.
“I’m on my way out to you. Just stay with her.”
He hung up the phone and Kailynn’s heart
fell.
Her eyes went to the writhing and
screaming Elite on the floor. The feedback on the alarm system was grating to
her ears, but she did not care to unplug the system. She could not turn away
from Isa.
She could not process what was happening
in front of her. Isa was being punished for granting citizenship to Trids.
Venus was causing excruciating pain for the Golden Elite, and there was nothing
anyone could do to help her.
Isa’s scream made thousands of knifes
pierce Kailynn’s chest. She closed her eyes, flinching away from the noise. Isa
screamed again, her body snapping fiercely. Kailynn pulled her knees into her
chest, her body shaking in fear and pain at seeing Isa suffer.
She watched Isa writhe in agony for six
hours, the tears tumbling down her cheeks as Isa’s writhing slowed and her
screams became quieter with exhaustion. Her body sporadically shook, her eyes
fluttering as her breathing became strained.
It seemed to be in slow-motion for
Kailynn.
Isa’s eyes slipped shut and her body went
lax.
For three seconds, Kailynn did not move.
She crawled forward slowly, listening to
Isa’s exhausted, strained breath. She placed her hand on Isa’s shoulder, seeing
the sweat gleaming over Isa’s skin. The Elite had finally passed out.
Kailynn gathered the Elite in her lap,
hugging what she could of Isa, the tears falling faster as the fear slowly
abated.
When she felt she could stand again,
Kailynn walked around the house, violently unplugging and deactivating
everything in the house she could. She did not want Venus finding them, furious
at the computer for putting Isa through such torture. Kailynn then ran into the
bedroom, pulling all the blankets off the bed and bringing them to where the
Elite had fallen unconscious.
She placed a pillow under Isa’s head and
then piled blankets on top of her to protect her from the chill of the room.
She then wrapped her arms around Isa,
pressing her chest to Isa’s back, hoping to keep the Elite warm.
She vowed to help Isa take down Venus
however she could. She could not bear to see Isa in such agony.
Kailynn was gently roused by a hand on
her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Rayal above her. She looked around,
feeling uncomfortably hot, and saw Dr. Busen walk forward, Paul behind him, and
Remus behind both of them.
Dr. Busen pulled the blanket from them
both and Kailynn slowly untangled herself from the unconscious Golden Elite.
Isa’s face was pale and there was a sheen
of sweat over her skin.
“Let’s move her to the bedroom,” Dr.
Busen murmured. Remus walked forward and scooped Isa up in his arms, walking
toward the bedroom as the doctors followed. Kailynn took Rayal’s offered hand
and pulled herself to her feet. He hugged her before she was hugged tightly by
an excited, worried Tarah.
“How are you?” Tarah asked.
“I’ve been better,” Kailynn murmured,
glancing in the open bedroom door. “…I’ve never seen anything like that,” she
whispered.
“I’m sure that was terrifying,” Rayal
said. “She must have thought that Isa was at the Syndicate, and was trying to
send a message to all the Elites.”
“There has to be a way to keep that from
happening…” Kailynn said, clearing her throat. She walked into the bedroom,
where Dr. Busen was walking around Isa, checking her over carefully, asking
Paul to take notes of different things.
Remus turned to Kailynn when she entered
the room and nodded once to her.
“Have you seen that happen to her
before?” Kailynn asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood next to
the Silver Elite.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I understand how
painful it is to watch that happen and being unable to help.” He sighed and
closed his eyes. “She was concerned that Venus’ reaction would be violent.”
“You announced it to the people without
her knowing before?” Kailynn murmured, surprised.
“Her system is so clogged with viruses
right now that we can actually keep information from her. But anything that is
publicly broadcast, she has access to.”
They both watched as Dr. Busen undressed
Isa’s chest, stopping when he opened the front of her uniform, his eyes going
wide.
“Holy shit…” he breathed.
“What is it?” Kailynn asked worriedly,
starting forward and climbing on the bed next to her. She looked over Isa’s
chest and saw strange patches of red skin that splayed across her chest in wavy
patterns. “What is that?”
“Burns,” Paul said quietly, his
expression pained. “Michael, we have to find a way to stop this. Venus will
destroy her from the inside out.”
“Remus,” Dr. Busen said, looking at the
Silver Elite, “can you jam the signals from this processing unit at all?”
“I can try,” Remus said. “I probably
won’t be able to interfere with all the frequencies,” he admitted. “And we’ll
have to watch her closely to be sure we don’t cause arrhythmia in her heart.”
“If you can work on a jammer, anything
would help,” Dr. Busen said, standing straight. “Paul, can you get my bag?” He
pointed to the living room and the other doctor went to obey, walking by Rayal
and Tarah, who were watching from the doorway.
“Is she going to be alright?”
Dr. Busen sighed and glanced at Kailynn
apologetically.
“I have never seen an attack leave her
with burns before,” he said. “It must have been truly excruciating.” He looked
back down at the Golden Elite. “She’s dehydrated, undernourished, and clearly
in pain. But she managed to last a very long time, it would appear.”
“Why didn’t the EMU come here?” Kailynn
pressed. “I’m sure her emitter chip was firing.”
“The safe house has been completely
blocked from all transmissions,” Remus said, shaking his head. “She didn’t take
any chances with your safety.”
“In any case, it’s best that this does
not get put in record at any hospital. We don’t need anyone hearing that the
Elite is severely ill when we’re heading into negotiations with Gihron.”
Paul returned to Michael’s side, handing
him the bag. The older doctor opened the bag and pulled out various vials and
syringes.
“If this is occurring while you are in
negotiations with Gihron,” Paul started seriously, “we are all going to need to
keep a very close eye on her. She’ll be weaker, and more susceptible to
manipulation.”
“You mean like what Colonel Amori did?”
Kailynn asked.
“Perhaps,” the doctor said with a nod.
Everyone stood around Isa as Dr. Busen
treated her as best as he was able. Once he was finished with her treatments,
they took various seats around the room, waiting for the Golden Elite to stir.
Kailynn sat with her on the bed, holding her hand tightly.
They only had to wait an hour before Isa
cringed and opened her eyes. She looked around her, flinching away from the
shooting pain that sparked on every moving muscle. When she met eyes with
Kailynn, she forced a tired smile and squeezed the former Significant’s hand.
When her eyes caught sight of everyone
else in the room, her eyes slowly closed.
“I guess I really scared you,” she
breathed.
“You were like that for six hours,”
Kailynn choked.
“How are you feeling, Isa?”
“I don’t know, yet,” she muttered,
turning to Dr. Busen. “It’s never been that intense before.”
“No, I would think not,” the doctor
agreed. “I’ve never seen an attack like that leave burns on your body.”
Isa lifted her other hand and looked at
her arm, seeing the wavy patterns of red and dark brown skin. She sighed
heavily again and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry…” she whispered.
“Don’t apologize,” Remus said. “You did
nothing wrong.”
Kailynn gently squeezed Isa’s hand,
unsure what to say. Isa swallowed hard and cringed, moving her body in an
attempt to get comfortable. She let out a short breath, flinching in pain.
“That hurt?” Dr. Busen asked.
“It was less painful to suffer through
the Pulse Virus,” Isa groaned, her eyes shut tightly.
“Isa, I’m going to work on a transmission
jammer,” Remus said. “What series transmitter do you think I should use?”
Isa sighed, her eyes remaining closed as
she tried to think through her pain.
“Probably a Series Seventeen.”
“Not Eighteen?”
“Eighteen has the metered connection
rate,” Isa reminded him. “It will shut down automatically at these levels.” She
took a deep breath, opening her eyes. “The car Kailynn had here should have a
Series Seventeen transmitter. Use that one.”
Remus nodded and left the room. Tarah and
Rayal walked in when the Silver Elite left, standing worriedly at the Golden
Elite’s bedside.
Isa took a deep breath, looking around
the room.
“Do you need to go back to the hospital?”
Isa asked Dr. Busen. The older doctor chuckled.
“No,” he assured. “I’m technically not
employed by the hospital. I’m employed by the Syndicate exclusively for your
care. I just work at that hospital to keep busy when I’m not working with you.”
Isa chuckled, cringing as the action sent
pain through her. She turned to Paul, who smiled and pointed at Dr. Busen.
“I just follow him around,” he chuckled.
Isa smiled, taking slow, even breaths.
“Isa,” Paul started, catching her
attention, “when are you starting negotiations with Gihron?”
“Next week,” Isa answered. “The
diplomatic convoy left Gihron several days ago. They should be here in about
six days.”
“I’m going to insist that you rest for
the entirety of those days,” Dr. Busen said strongly. “You need to be as strong
as possible for negotiations with Gihron, and I’m sure that Venus will not
attack you when you are hosting another diplomat, particularly in this delicate
situation.”
“We do not know for sure if General
Decius is coming to the planet,” Rayal said. “It’s possible that he will remain
on Gihron and send others in his stead.”
“Let’s hope that he does,” Paul said.
“The fact that they’re insisting on
negotiations on Tiao is a red flag,” Dr. Busen mused.
“They want to show us the lengths they
are willing to go for a peace agreement,” Isa murmured. She let out a strained
laugh. “They must think I am an idiot,” she groaned. “They came these lengths
for war to begin with.”
The group let Isa sleep, knowing that
they had to return to Anon soon. Kailynn sat with the others in the living room
of the safe house, discussing warning signs to look for if Isa was in danger
from any of the diplomats from Gihron. Kailynn listened intently. Even though
the subject had not yet been raised, she was firm in her decision to return to
Anon with Isa.
When the subject did come up, Dr. Busen
said that he would have to change her emitter chip, which was still disabled,
and make sure that Venus could not locate her. However, no one protested
Kailynn’s return to Anon.
They knew Isa would need all the support
possible.
Late at night, they woke Isa and tried to
get her to eat, though the pain in her body made it difficult for her to keep
food down.
Kailynn remained in the bed with Isa as
the others stayed in various spots throughout the safe house, making up beds
with any blankets and pillows they could find.
Remus remained awake the entire night,
programming and building a small, box-like device on the table in the living
room. He was intensely focused on the jammer, so much so that he did not
realize he had spent seventeen hours building it and everyone was waking the
next morning when he finally finished.
Kailynn watched in fascination as Dr.
Busen and Remus worked together attaching the device directly to Isa’s skin,
just below her left breast. They inserted nodes into her ribcage, feeding them
into position by using a portable scanner to see into her chest cavity. Kailynn
watched the process with fascination and horror. She could see that there was a
relatively large, metal device in Isa’s body, frighteningly close to her heart,
and she was concerned that one false move would cause Isa’s heart to stop
beating.
However, the two finished attaching the
jammer to Isa’s ribcage and secured it with an adhesive bandage that hardened
against her skin.
When Isa dressed again, no one could see
the device through her clothing.
They decided to leave the safe house that
night. Rayal and Tarah returned first, agreeing to take the shortest route to
Anon. Remus left three hours after them, taking a different way, a much longer
one that would allow him to enter the city from the west. Isa and Kailynn took
Isa’s car back to the capital the same way Rayal and Tarah had, both of them
quiet as they left close to midnight.
Kailynn wanted to sleep through the long,
eleven-hour drive back to Anon, but her nerves were too high. She could feel
the fear and anticipation in her stomach. She understood that the negotiation
stages were far more dangerous than the battles. They did not know who was
coming to negotiate on behalf of Gihron, and it could lead to a similar
situation to Colonel Amori’s manipulation and blackmail of Isa.
Rayal’s words many months ago resonated
through her skull.
“He
poisoned me…slowly…over the course of about four months.”
Kailynn had spent many sleepless nights
in the safe house wondering how Colonel Amori had managed to poison Rayal, how
he had managed to turn the Elites against each other and against Isa, and how
it all related to the accident that had caused Isa to have half of her face
reconstructed, and end the relationship between her and Remus.