Episode 8 - Symbiosis

  Chapter 79 - Sickbay

  I feel like I drift in and out of awareness as we rise into the sky.

  Pooka climbs into the rushing storm around us. The wind buffets us, and he flutters like a leaf through the tumbling gusts. He keeps close, swooping on either side of my rescuers as we rise into the air, then climbs skywards. Around us, static crackles. The clouds are more than just moisture. They are spinning white spores and dust, whipped into a fury of energy. Lightning dances on the tips of our wings as we soar. We pass the head of the great golden Garuda who glides confidently through the chaos, his claws gripped valiantly to the metal box of human lives he carries within his talons. As Pooka dives past his face, barely a black speck in the sky compared to the golden giant, the Garuda tilts his head, and shoulders into the wind slightly to let Pooka come up underneath his chin and fly in the relative calm of his shadow. Almost like he can see us…

  I shiver as I dangle from the end of the rope that continues to pull me upwards to the gondola. The man I am strapped to shifts an arm protectively around my shoulders, tugging the hood of my environmental suit over my head. “You’re a fucking idiot,” chastises a voice into my forehead. My teeth are chattering too much for me to respond.

  We sway as the Garuda turns in the air. The rope jostles, then someone grabs me again, and I feel solid surfaces beneath my feet. My knees buckle, and several pairs of hands keep me upright.

  “Captain’s ordered her into the sickbay bed!” calls a voice I don’t recognize.

  “Get out of the way,” snaps my rescuer, fingers fumbling between us to undo the carabiners and loosen the harness they strapped me into. “She’s soaked. We need to get her through the airlock!”

  Roller doors from the balcony of the gondola are lifted, I can hear fans turning on and the sound of splashing water as buckets and mops clatter. Several people roughly slop the incoming rain from the floor of the balcony, collecting the moisture into buckets for use. The ground I stand on surges beneath my feet as a powerful gust shakes us, and I stumble, only to be caught again by hands. I gasp in panic when fingers tug on my respirator.

  “It’s safe, girl, you’re inside. Filtered air.”

  I bat the hand away from me. My vision spins.

  “Conrad! Hey, hey,” an insistent hand taps the side of my face, cobalt eyes I can’t focus on looking at me through my face shield. The familiar eyes aren't behind a respirator. “Listen to me.” A hand grabs mine, fingers wrapping between my own. “You’re safe. We’re inside. Let Patrick help you with your mask. We need to get you dry or you’ll catch sick.”

  “I can take care of myself,” I manage to spit. The hand on the side of my jaw lingers, then retreats. “Where’s the wooden plank?” I ask.

  “Careful, Patrick. She doesn’t need her symbiont to be dangerous,” says the familiar voice to his companion. Then, speaking to me, “It’s here, we’ve got it. Crew is drying it off and collecting the water.”

  “I can guess as much. What a fuckin’ sight it was. Bloody cryptids,” replies Patrick.

  Outside in the storm, Pooka and the golden Garuda climb ever higher; the darkness of the surrounding clouds is thinning. Pooka wings out from under the Garuda’s shadow, excited by a splash of pale blue. He bursts through the clouds and suddenly we rise above the storm into a vast, open world of sky.

  His claws grasp at the spun clouds beneath him, still roiling with their contained energies, and he gives a cry of elation as the steady, strong winds of these higher altitudes lift his wings effortlessly. The golden back of the Garuda breaks through the clouds next, and one metallic eye watches us as huge wings steady and he slowly lifts above the turbulence into the calmer air.

  I undo the straps on the back of my head and finally peel the respirator off the front of my face. The first breath without the stink of silicone goes a long way towards gathering my scattered faculties.

  Rhett opens his palm towards me to take the respirator. “You’re soaked.”

  Patrick, a close shaven copper-headed man about our age, hands me a towel. “Get that suit off. We got crew clearing you a bed in the sickbay, somewhere to change and get warm.”

  I take the towel, wiping down my face and neck, and for the first time look properly around. My stomach lurches as the gondola shifts again. The walls are dark steel, riveted at regular intervals, with strings of LEDs illuminating the windowless interior. Overhead, a netting of rope has been affixed to the ceiling to create a network of handholds. Patrick hangs from the netting one-handed, as if the habit is second nature to him. Rhett does not appear to be able to reach them comfortably, and instead has his back to a doorway and feet planted wide.

  “Did your dad’s crew make it away safe?” I ask tentatively while I unzip the front of my suit and dab the towel to the front of my chest. I did not realize I had left it so open after digging out the lighter; no wonder the water got in. I feel surprisingly weak. My underlayers are soaked. The material is plastered onto my skin.

  “Yeah, they got free once you drained the plains,” says Rhett, looking down the hallway while he speaks.

  My hand is shaking too much to grasp the clips around my wrists properly. My lingering bandaged hand doesn’t help.

  “Can I help you?” asks Patrick.

  “Please,” I stutter, my jaw clattering again as a shiver of cold runs down my spine. Rhett glances our way as Patrick helps me peel back the layers of my suit.

  He hisses between his teeth in sympathy as we pull the heavy fabric down my waist, stripping me to only my underlayers. “Girl, look at you. What’s Aquila put you through?”

  I blink. The bandages wrapping my burns are slipping off my hands - the water soaking through the glue of the strapping that held them in place, revealing the sensitive fresh pink skin underneath. There is a thin moleskin bandage still on my collar where Regina stabbed me. I wonder if that is the only thing he’s looking at, though. I’m lean muscle these days, nothing like Rhett or Blake, more corded sinew along my shoulders and down my arms, dotted with bruises and bumps. I lift a hand and hang it from my neck, suddenly shy, holding the towel in front of me. I feel absolutely freezing now, at least the heavy suit was holding in some of my warmth.

  “Leave her alone,” interrupts Rhett, snatching a second towel out of a cubby on the wall and dumping it over my head. “Can you walk?”

  “Not just you they put through the wringer then?” quips Patrick, stepping back and lifting his hands defensively.

  “Can we not? It’s not like it’s much worse than out here-”

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  “I can walk,” I say, lifting one hand and testing out holding onto the netting above us. “Where am I going?”

  “This way,” says Patrick, ducking through the doorway into a metal-lined hallway.

  I emerge from behind the privacy screen feeling dry and warm for the first time in hours, maybe. I do not know how long Pooka and I were working in the rain before we were picked up. I run a towel through my hair, drying the dripping silvery strands.

  Rhett is sitting cross-legged on a stool across the sickbay, leaning his hand on his chin and occasionally swaying as the gondola creaks through the air. He’s stripped his environmental suit, wearing a simple grey tank, and loose gym shorts over the form-fitting leggings that are the common underlayers of these crews. He wears no weapons nor armor out here. There is no harness across his chest, no holster under an armpit. No blade strapped to his forearms. His steady hands are empty.

  “Where’d Patrick go?” I ask.

  He lifts an eyebrow, turning to me. “Went to find the Captain.”

  “Rattakul?”

  “Captain Rattakul,” he corrects.

  “What about my-”

  “Patrick has the scrap of wood.”

  “Why haven’t I seen you?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bunk. I feel exhausted. I want to just go to sleep.

  “Why-?” Rhett almost chokes on the reply. “You saw how Wez was. You think the rest of my father’s crew is much better? It doesn’t matter if they knew me or not, there’s no escaping the rumor mill here once it starts.”

  “They’re good people.”

  “Hah,” he barks once. “And I am not.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He exhales through his nose. There is a hint of amusement. “You implied it.”

  “Why did you never properly tell me what happened?”

  “What happened when? What does it matter? It’s done already…”

  I fold my towel in my hands, looking at the doorway. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Rhett sighs, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders slump, and he remains silent for so long I think he won’t answer. Then he lifts his head, stretches his legs straight in front of him and leans backwards on the stool.

  “Wez was right. I’m here because I am a coward. I ran away to the only place I’ve ever felt like I belonged. I just didn’t… want to face myself or my failures… yet. I have tried to be like Mum and Dad, better than them even, and I have cared, so hard, about protecting people, to the best of my fucking ability - only to have it blow up time and time again in my face because I am not enough. Because the resources I have are not enough.” He sighs. “I was sick of carrying that weight for a while. Happy?”

  “Why didn’t you go back after Regina sprung you?”

  Rhett blinks, looking at me directly with a scowl. “My ransom was not cheap. Aquila was not in the financial position we are now. There was a risk of layoffs if I wasn’t bringing in my fair share to help pay back my debt. It seemed the more responsible decision, the one that would lead to the least harm. I… Pre-manifest I enjoyed my work out here, but my symbiont isn’t exactly useful to these crews. As much as I owe Captain Rattakul for taking me on as long as she did… It felt like pity. Still does...” he trails off, clasping his hands in his lap.

  I lean backwards on the bed and lie down, staring at the riveted ceiling above me. It feels so good to relax and not be cold. It’s tiring and exhausting, feeling all these sensations outside in the real world past the dome. But on reflection now that I’m safe, I loved the drama of the storm; I loved the violence of the lightning and dark flashing clouds. I’d seen them in memories that were not my own, and I want to commit these actual sensations deeply to my mind now. Felt with my skin, and seen with my own eyes. Despite the terror of the close call with the holobiont… I loved feeling it, adrenaline pumping through my body. I loved standing alone in a dead city and being the only voice that cried out to an empty world and watching it bend to us. I love the vast power at our disposal. And I love the return to cozy, dirty, ragged human places, the absence of all of that vastness, the feeling of safety and warmth. We want to feel life, the harsh and the soft.

  And a deep, dark place lingers… threaded in my thoughts. It whispers of the quiet. Black metal, solid earth. A beyond without a will.

  “Do you trust her?” I ask after a moment of silence, breaking my thoughts away from the lingering sensations of the manifestation platform.

  “Who?”

  “Rattakul?”

  “Captain Rattakul. Yes, she’s the captain of this vessel.”

  “But you trust her as more than a captain?” I press.

  He studies me as if he can sense I’m probing for something deeper. “Yes.”

  It almost feels odd that we haven’t started yelling at each other yet. I rub my shoulder to warm myself idly. “What do I do?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You all saw me, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So… how do I explain myself? Patrick’s getting her now, right?”

  Rhett massages his eyebrows. His voice is surprisingly quiet, like he’s just as thoughtful as I am right now. “Could you always do that?”

  “You don’t remember much of Catakalan?” I reply.

  “Maybe. Things were a jumble…”

  “That is one way to put it.” I shyly look at my hands, studying the pink scars from the burns on one hand. “Maybe. I’ve gotten stronger and stronger over the last year. I don’t think I could do these things when we met. I’m not trying to lie to you, just not saying everything… I don’t regret,” - I take a breath - “saving lives for once.”

  “Did Adrian know?”

  I almost spit, the dismissive exhale of my breath is so violent. “What doesn’t he know?”

  Rhett leans over to take my discarded wet towel, and shoves it under one armpit to scrub his skin. “I trust the Captain,” he says slowly, and then as he catches my scrunched nose of disgust, gives a soft chuckle. “Water is precious out here. Waste not.”

  “You go feral quick. You’re all tailored suits and black ties in the dome.”

  That elicits a bark of amusement. “I’m who I need to be. You’ve never been anything but feral.”

  “I’m who I need to be,” I repeat, amused despite myself at the words. “And apparently that’s a living weapon now. I became what I had to, to survive.”

  “Hmm.” Rhett gives away nothing on his face, but his pensive expression makes me think my words resonate with him just as much as his words resonated with me. “I’m sorry.”

  He’s a spoiled brat. Son of management. I always thought he was oblivious to the power of his position, but this conversation makes me reframe his casual use of his privilege and pragmatism as a more purposeful deployment of the few tools he has. He didn’t choose his circumstances, any more than I didn’t choose what I am. We each learn to weaponise what we can to survive.

  I take a breath. “What do you know about manifestat-”

  There is a knock at the door. Patrick pokes his head through as he leans in. “Captain will see you now.” As Rhett stands, he adds, “Not you. She wants you to make a pot of tea.”

  He chuckles. “What’d she want?”

  “Chef’s choice.”

  Rhett snorts out his nose. “Copy.”

  I roll upwards from the bed, letting my hands fall in my lap. Outside, the great golden Garuda continues to watch as Pooka dives through the open sky above the storm, a tiny black speck screaming with joy as he ducks and weaves through wisps of cloud or the turbulent vortexes in the Garuda’s wake.

  Rhett and I split up in the narrow metal hallway without a word, and I follow Patrick to the front of the gondola where the vessel narrows.