Matala cowered against the wall beneath the medical equipment, clutching her wounded finger. It took almost all of Jyra’s concentration to keep the scalpel from shaking. While maintaining eye contact with Matala, she grabbed her mother’s locket and pulled it over her head with one hand.
“You’d do better to run,” Matala said, her dark eyes narrowed with hatred.
“My offer’s still open,” Jyra said.
“And your throat will be soon,” Matala said. “We still have uses for patients after they die.”
Jyra took several strides and knelt next to Matala, holding the point of the scalpel an inch from the doctor’s right eye. The blade shook in her hand now, but she didn’t care. She felt stronger as she saw Matala’s back stiffen against the wall.
“You…you don’t know what you’re doing,” Matala said, a vocal quiver distorting her firm tone.
“You’re my doctor so tell me what I’m doing,” Jyra commanded. “What did you give me?”
“It’s temporary,” Matala said.
“What did you give me?” Jyra shouted. The tip of the scalpel shook so badly it cut Matala’s eyelid.
“MS-231 ,” Matala said. She tried to lean away from the blade, but her head hit the wall.
“What is it?” Jyra demanded.
“A muscle stimulant,” Matala said. “We’ve been developing it.”
Jyra thought of Berk, remembering when he’d described what happened to him at an Allied Hospital. She had asked him if he knew what formulas or chemicals had been used to alter him and he said he didn’t know.
Jyra had told him that if the same thing had happened to her, she’d want to know what they were.
“Well I’m glad it’s not you then,” Berk said.
Perhaps that’s no longer the case, Jyra thought. Her eyes met Matala’s again. She stared into the two glistening pits; they resembled two clumps of tar.
“Have you developed any artificial eyes?” Jyra asked.
“Please don’t do this,” Matala begged. “Your personal belongings are across the hall. I can get them for you.”
She stopped talking as Jyra pressed the scalpel closer. She turned her wounded hand around so Matala could see the cut she made, still leaking blood.
“I can make that right,” Matala stammered. “Just give me another chance.”
“You can make it right,” Jyra nodded, suddenly aware of the adrenaline building near her navel. “But my parents never had another chance right before they were murdered. Someone like you doesn’t get chances.”
The moment she finished speaking, whatever energy was in her stomach cracked loose. It radiated into her limbs, surprising and rejuvenating her simultaneously. Jyra was aware that Matala had started to move, likely to escape or to attack, but Jyra was quicker. She jabbed the scalpel twice and leapt back, her mother’s locket thumping on her chest. Matala’s screams filled the room as she thrashed in agony on the floor, her world as dark as her eyes had been.
Jyra wiped the scalpel on the bedspread and hurried to the door. Her legs quaked as she walked. It was hard enough to block out Matala’s howling, let alone think about what to do once she opened the door. For all she knew, a team of hospital agents might already be lined up in the corridor, waiting to apprehend her.
Curiously, changing back into her proper clothes was Jyra’s chief concern. After all, she would certainly be detained for walking the corridors in a hospital gown, especially in this part of the facility where patients were bound in their beds. Nevertheless, she paused with her finger over the door button, surprised at the hierarchy of concerns assembled in her mind. The fear of an ambush in the corridor, perhaps even being killed on the spot, were all but inaccessible. How could finding her clothes be the top priority? Jyra took a deep breath, ignoring the sound of Matala’s fingernails scrabbling at the floor, and pressed the button.
The door slid open and Jyra slipped through it as soon as the gap could accommodate her. The corridor was inexplicably empty. The high walls were covered in dark gray paint and terminated against the exposed metal ceiling trusses. Wires and pipes wound overhead through the framework. Like the walls, everything over Jyra’s head was coated in gray. Even the long light fixtures were painted, except the lamps themselves. The floor felt solid and smooth under Jyra’s bare feet. It had been scuffed and scratched in many places, but its color hid all but the largest imperfections.
As the door continued to open to Jyra’s room, Matala’s screams and curses grew louder. Jyra heard pounding footsteps approaching from either end of the curved passage. Any moment, hospital staff were going to round the bend and see a patient standing in the hallway, dressed in a faded gown and clutching a scalpel.
Matala had said Jyra’s belongings were in a closet across the hall from her room. Jyra saw only one narrow door nearby. She tried the handle and discovered it was locked. She gave a firm tug, certain nothing would come of it, but instead, the handle came away in her fingers, cracked clean from the door. The latch still kept the door shut, but Jyra leaned against it and the entire metal door began to flex as she dug her feet into the floor.
Jyra fell out of the passage as the door gave way. She landed on her side and kicked the door shut immediately. Seconds later, multiple pairs of feet ran by. None of them noticed the door had a gentle crease extending its full height nor that the handle had been broken off.
Jyra got back to her feet and found herself surrounded by shelves of small white crates of personal effects. The closet wasn’t too large, and Jyra assumed it must just serve this floor or the nearest cluster of rooms. A single overhead fixture provided enough light to read the labels affixed to the crates. Though the ceiling was not as high as that of the corridor, the closet had been painted the same gray color.
One look at the labels made Jyra’s mouth go dry. A bar code took up most of the space on the label and several numbers were printed beneath it. Jyra suspected one of them might be a room number, but she realized she didn’t know what hers had been. Then she let out a slow breath as she caught sight of her wrist. Without a mark herself, her crate wouldn’t be marked either. On a bottom shelf, she found three crates with blank labels on them.
She pried one crate open and saw pair of boots along with a black flight suit. Jyra nearly closed the lid, before she realized this was Kip’s crate. Matala had said he was in next room over from Jyra’s, but there had been large sliding doors to the right and left so she wasn’t sure which room Kip was in. Jyra considered that she couldn’t trust anything Matala said, but she hadn’t been lying about where her clothes were stored.
Jyra found her outfit in the last crate she opened. The second crate contained only a watch that wasn’t running and it smelled a little like smoke. Her clothes had been washed in something sweet and the aroma filled the closet. She tore the gown free and dressed quickly; the door wasn’t as secure as it used to be. Jyra finished tying her boots and wadded up the hospital gown to cram into one of the cargo pockets above her knee.
Jyra pressed her ear against the door. A babble of voices filled the hall but it wasn’t loud enough to cover Matala’s screams.
“Find her!” Jyra heard her doctor yell.
Jyra knew she should stay put. She might have the strength to bend metal doors, but there were too many foes in the hallway and all she had was a scalpel.
I don’t need to fight anyone, she thought. I just need to rescue Kip.
“Get her to emergency op now,” a gruff voice commanded from the corridor. Jyra listened to the crowd dispersing. The same voice spoke again, but by then he was nearly out of earshot. Jyra thought he said something about doubling patrols.
Soon, nothing could be heard except for the hum of the closet light fixture. Jyra shoved the door open and stepped into the corridor. She crept along the curved wall until she could see the door of her room, which sat ajar. Two guards stood watch, but they were in the middle of quiet conversation.
Jyra’s fingers tightened on the handle of her scalpel. One door was right across the corridor from where she stood. Kip could be behind it or the one farther down the passage. Jyra chose the easier option first.
She crossed the hall to press the button, relieved the guards failed to notice her.
The lighting in the room beyond was dim, but the screens on the wall cast enough light for Jyra to see that the bed was occupied. She stepped inside and tapped the button to close the door. She approached the bed, keeping an eye on the camera in the ceiling.
The patient was bound as she had been. A familiar smell filled her nostrils and Jyra realized it was the same odor that emanated from the watch she had just found in the closet. She paused at the foot of the bed to stay out of the camera shot.
The build of the patient made Jyra think it was a man, but he was larger than Kip. An air mask obscured his face, but his bare scalp was easy to discern against the pillow. Large bandages covered his hands and arms. Jyra carefully raised a corner of the blanket and saw both feet and lower legs were similarly wrapped.
A screen flashed for a moment. Jyra glanced at it, and then stared harder, trying to read the name.
Tony Verral, she read. It meant nothing until she remembered his had been the last name broadcast through the base, confirming he was one of the crew on the wrecked ship. Jyra, Serana, Kip, and others had inspected the remains of the transport. It didn’t seem possible that anyone aboard could have survived. Jyra wondered if other crew members of the doomed ship were alive, but unless they were on another floor, the number of new crates in the closet squashed any hope of additional survivors, if Kip was indeed nearby.
As her eyes adjusted to the low light, Jyra noticed the swath of burns on Tony’s shoulders visible near the neck of his gown. Patches of soot were still smeared on his skin. It was no wonder his crate contained nothing but his watch; his clothes surely burned in the crash.
Jyra slipped out of the room, silently vowing to free Tony once she found Kip. Unfortunately, she forgot about the guards outside her room.
“Hey!” one of them shouted.
“It’s her,” the other guard said, taking a step forward and hoisting a rifle to his shoulder without delay.
The adrenaline reared in Jyra’s abdomen again. With calculating accuracy that outpaced the aggressing guard, Jyra adjusted her grip on the scalpel and threw it end over end. Neither of the guards reacted or indicated they even saw the weapon approaching. The guard with the rifle, however, coughed in shock and dropped his firearm as his hands went to his throat and his knees hit the floor. The scalpel blade lodged in one of his carotid arteries.
Jyra closed in on the second guard who was distracted by the crimson flowing from her comrade’s neck. She had sank to the floor to tend to him and looked up in time to catch the heel of Jyra’s boot on her forehead.
Her handgun clattered from her fingers as she slumped forward, knocked unconscious. Jyra picked it up and automatically pointed it into her old room. Several officials were inside taking photographs and cleaning up the mess near the bed. All the screens were dark on the bed headwall. No one moved as they stared into Jyra’s fierce gaze.
“Anyone opens this door,” Jyra said, hitting the button to close it, “I guarantee others will have to come clean what’s left of you all off the floor, too.”
She moved onto the next room and opened the door. The lights were just as bright as Jyra remembered from her accommodations. Several people were inside, too. They weren’t documenting damage, but rather preparing to move the bed.
“Where are you taking me?” a familiar voice demanded. Kip thrashed on the mattress against his bonds. A fresh cut near his right eye oozed blood. The fine gash seemed as though it had been carved with a scalpel.
“Somewhere safe,” one of the movers answered, fussing with one of the casters.
“I hope that means you’re taking him out of this facility,” Jyra said.
“What’s she doing here?” one of the bed movers asked, alarmed.
“I thought she fled the ward,” a third said.
“Only speculation,” the first bed mover said, standing up from his wheel and raising his hands to shoulder height. “But she’s clever, this one. It seems as though Matala gave you more of a dose than she should have.”
“Jyra, what are you doing?” Kip asked. Though he’d previously been clean shaven, Kip now wore a beard that had at least five days of growth, renewing Jyra’s fears of how long they’d been in the hospital.
“The drug actually gets more credit for the actions,” the man said. “It just needs a body. This body has no idea how to handle a gun. I can tell the way 231 holds this pistol, though. Passable but cumbersome.”
“Who are you?” Jyra said.
“Zeers, chief researcher,” he replied. “Moving patients isn’t one of my usual responsibilities, but this whole building is locked down to aid in the search for you. Tasks must be completed by those close at hand.”
“If everything’s locked down, where are you taking him?” Jyra asked, tightening her grip on the pistol.
“Somewhere safe,” Zeers repeated. “And if you try to harm or stop us, we’ll send your friend into a coma from which he’ll never recover.”
Another mover held up Kip’s IV tube. A syringe was already loaded in the manifold, a thumb prepared to press the plunger.
Jyra swallowed as the sound of a shotgun blast surfaced in the memory. The guard fell from the ladder, dead before he hit the floor.
Jyra shook her head and squinted at the man with the syringe. Then she looked back at Zeers.
“I couldn’t risk that,” she said, staring at his ratlike eyes.
Zeers smiled.
“231 isn’t always rational–” he began, but the shot from the pistol made him squeal.
The syringe lay on the floor, the plunger driven in as far as possible, the needle stuck firmly in the manifold. The IV tube hung over the bedrail, but stopped three feet above the floor where the bullet severed it. The bed mover with the syringe had fallen on his back, blood leaking from the wound in his chest.
Jyra fired three more times, leaving only herself, Kip, and Zeers alive in the room. Kip was gaping under his whiskers, clearly at a loss for what to say. Zeers slumped to his knees as Jyra advanced on him.
“I’ll tell you everything about 231,” he said. “I know everything there is to know about it.”
“I don’t care,” Jyra said, aiming the pistol at Zeers. “And don’t try to make some deal with me. Did you see the last staff member who tried? Because I promise she can’t see you.”
“What do you want?” Zeers asked.
“I want you to help my friend and I escape.”
Zeers shook his head.
“Impossible. I-it’s locked down,” he stammered.
“Or you can die here,” Jyra said. “You’re a chief researcher. You’re smart enough to make the right choice. In fact, you’re smart enough to join the resistance. Isn’t he, Kip?”
Jyra glanced at Kip, who, although startled, appeared mildly dazed by the proceedings. He peered over the edge of his bed at one of the corpses.
“Of course,” he answered. “As long as he gets us out of here.”
“Perfect,” Jyra said, before addressing Zeers. “Release him.” She jabbed the pistol toward the chief researcher.
Zeers clambered to his feet and unfastened the straps that bound Kip to the mattress, careful to keep his eyes off of his fallen colleagues.
“Don’t worry about your friends,” Jyra said. “Matala informed me that even the dead have uses in a place like this.”
Zeers didn’t answer but glared at the camera in the ceiling.
“They are watching us,” he muttered. “We won’t get far.”
Kip climbed awkwardly out of bed. He swayed in place for a moment before shuffling forward several paces.
“Just a little sore,” he said, with a tight smile.
“I hope that’s the worst of it,” Jyra said. “Are you okay, overall?”
“I think so,” he replied. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?” Kip said, his eyebrows raised. “Last time I saw you, your leg was barely healed. Suddenly, you come bursting in to free me, with an assassin’s aim. What did they give you?”
“A muscle stimulant,” Jyra said. “But I can’t explain it all now. We need to move if we’re going to get out of here alive and we need to get Tony as well.”
“Tony?” Kip said. The dazed, bedridden expression returned.
“Tony Verral,” Jyra said. “He’s probably the only survivor of the fried transport we examined. First we’ll get your clothes back.”
After a quick stop by the crate closet (Jyra thought it best not to mention who bent the door) the trio entered Tony’s room. Kip looked more like himself in his flight suit, despite his beard. Zeers moved with a stiffer gait, likely because Jyra kept prodding his spine with the pistol.
Once they reached the bed, Zeers leaned down to engage the wheels on the bed frame.
“I assume you took out the guards in the hall back there,” Kip said in a low voice while Jyra kept her weapon trained on Zeers. She nodded.
“Strange,” Kip said. “You’d think their absence from radio traffic would attract reinforcements. They’d at least send someone to see about the lack of check-ins. Plus someone knows you just helped me escape my room. They have terrible response time.”
“Well, let’s hope they wait a little longer,” Jyra said.
“Can’t argue with that,” Kip said, placing his hands in his pockets and surveying Tony through the gloom.
Zeers got back to his feet and began maneuvering the bed under Jyra’s command. The group reentered the curved corridor.
“Nearest exit?” Jyra asked.
Zeers hesitated and Jyra raised the gun so swiftly the chief researcher whimpered.
“Don’t even think of lying to me,” Jyra said. “If we get caught, I’ll make sure you die first.”
Zeers guided the bed to the right with his head bowed. Only the sound of their footsteps echoed in the sweeping passage. Jyra felt her heartbeat more in her ears than her chest. Just when it seemed as though they were going to have made one large loop and followed the curving walls back to where they started, a pair of doors appeared ahead. Jyra made Zeers go through first.
The moment Zeers opened one of the doors, the cacophony of sound reminded Jyra of the attack on the TF complex. The whine of overloaded engines, the rumble of heavy artillery mixed with the higher pitched notes of gunfire, people screaming, and the crash of shattering glass all filled the passage at once. Jyra nearly dropped the pistol.
Kip recovered his senses first and rushed forward to hold the other door open. Zeers cowered as kept his door ajar. Kip pulled Tony through so Jyra could keep her gun trained on the chief researcher.
The hallway beyond was the same height as the curved passage, but the walls and ceiling and were finished with white paneling. The new passage ran perpendicular to the curved corridor. Large floor-to-ceiling windows replaced the paneling at each end of the hallway. The nearest window was only twenty paces away and everyone, except Tony who was still unconscious, gazed through it, transfixed by the scene outside.
Through the dust and smoke billowing in the wind, at least five ships were visible. Jyra guessed she was on the third floor, based on the buildings across the street, which were harder to see than the ships. A severed girder crashed against the window and cracked the glass. Zeers jumped, tripped over the door, and fell.
“This explains the lax security,” Kip said. “I’d say they are quite preoccupied with outdoor activities. We need to get out of here before the whole place comes down.”
Jyra cautiously approached the window. She held the gun at her side, but didn’t bother guarding Zeers for the moment; he hadn’t returned to his feet since he fell. Kip might be right about the possible destruction of the building around them. Another piece of debris hit the window with a loud snap that made Jyra flinch.
She leaned forward anyway, careful to stay as far back from the window as possible. While Kip made an important point about their safety in the building, Jyra wasn’t about to rush outside into the middle of a mysterious battle. From here, she had some perspective of the street below and could make a better plan of where to go once they walked out of the hospital.
Unfortunately, the street was hardly visible through the patchy clouds of dust. A bulky cargo ship, bearing the Allied Hospital seal on its bow, hovered over the street, like a vast blimp. Jyra caught sight of cables hanging beneath it. From where she stood, they looked like tiny threads, and the soldiers using them to descend to the street seemed no larger than ants.
Serana had been right. The hospital security was more of an army. Jyra estimated at least five hundred troops swung free of the cargo ship and disappeared into the dust. She wasn’t sure where they were headed, but a fresh explosion redirected Jyra’s attention skyward.
The ships that had been visible outside the window when she had first entered the white hall were locked in battle, more than twenty stories in the air. Three of the transports similar to the one Tony had been in were attacking another Allied Hospital cargo ship and a modified gunner, also marked with the hospital seal.
Jyra was almost certain the resistance was in control of the three transports. The trio worked together, exchanging fire with the gunner and taking shots at the cargo ship whenever possible. The large clumsy ship seemed to be trying to return to street level, but it couldn’t descend while it hovered over the tall building. Jyra just noticed a plume of smoke coiling from one of the cargo ship’s engines, when something else hit the window and the glass gave way, fragments littering the hall floor or tumbling toward the street.
The wind hit Jyra, bearing the acrid smell of smoke and burning steel. Concrete dust filled her nose and she staggered backward as Kip called her name. Jyra made her way to the group.
Zeers still crouched on the floor. Jyra pointed the pistol at him and ordered him back to his feet.
“The resistance is out there,” Jyra said. “Also a cargo ship might crash through the roof at any moment. Quickest way to the nearest exit that doesn’t put us out on that street?”
“No need to ask him,” Kip said, nodding at the window. “It’s broken which compromises lock down.”
Jyra remembered Serana explaining how the resistance often freed patients from the hospitals by extracting them through windows.
“So we just need to get a ship here?” Jyra said.
“We need a radio for that,” Kip said. “Find an isolated frequency.”
“The guards,” Jyra said, her nerves pulsing as they stood in the windy hallway. “Go back and get one of theirs.”
She kept the gun on Zeers as Kip went back the way they had come. Jyra hoped the corridor remained clear and empty for him.
“You’ve got a way out,” the chief researcher mumbled, edging toward Tony’s bed. “You certainly don’t need me.”
Jyra cocked the pistol and re-aimed. Zeers raised his hands again and fell against the wall.
“If you are the best researcher they’ve got, they may as well turn you into a patient,” Jyra said, stepping toward him and away from the window. “This isn’t 231 with the gun, it’s me. I’m still talking to you, which means we haven’t escaped the building. In fact, I wasn’t kidding about you joining the resistance. You’re coming with us. Start by scouting for a nearby ship. We’ll see if we can target it with the radio.”
Zeers approached the shattered window at gunpoint. His footsteps crunched as his shoes pressed the shards of glass into the carpet.
“I don’t know what ship to look for,” he said.
The door behind Jyra crashed open as Kip fell inside, clutching a radio, his face beneath his whiskers whiter than the wall paneling. At the exact same moment, Zeers cried out and fell backward, as a spray of blood appeared near his left shoulder.
“Guards!” Kip gasped.
“I’m hit!” Zeers squawked, his right hand clasped over his left collar bone.
Jyra rushed to Tony’s bed and wrenched a bar from one of the rails free. She thrust it through the pair of door handles as several bodies struck the other side of the doors. Jyra pulled the bed toward the window, crouching low after what happened to Zeers. The chief researcher rolled on the floor, hyperventilating as his blood ran upon the carpet.
“Relax,” Jyra said. “We’ll get you patched up, but not if you bleed out first.”
The guards pounded on the doors, which hardly swung open before the rail bound them shut. Kip crawled after the bed and turned the radio on, hastily scanning channels.
“Stay back,” Jyra warned him. “Someone is targeting the window.”
Even she dropped to her knees as several bullets blew holes in the ceiling. Zeers continued thrashing on his back, grimacing and hissing through clenched teeth.
“Any luck?” Jyra hollered.
“Interference!” Kip replied. “Signals are jammed all over the place. Whatever’s happening out there is big.”
Jyra leaned against the wall and tucked the pistol into her belt. Zeers was in no condition to cause any disruption now. The guards smashed the doors again. The bar held fast.
“Might have something,” Kip said.
“Get the word out,” Jyra urged, glancing up at Tony, who remained in his deep coma.
“Kip here, Kip here!” Kip shouted into the radio. “Locate my position!”
He stared up at Jyra and shook his head.
“Lost it,” he muttered. “Jammed.”
The guards hit the door again and fired a shot through the gap. It struck the opposite wall, but Jyra saw the bar beginning to bend.
“How many guards?” she asked.
“Plenty,” Kip said, scanning with the radio again. “Ten or fifteen.”
It wasn’t possible to hold off that many with one pistol. Jyra wondered if she and Kip might escape out the window. Even if they could climb the building facade, either a stray or deliberate bullet would find them.
The bar bent further and one guard shot it. The bullet ricocheted but furthered the crease. Several more strikes and guards would spill through the doors. The shots across the hall also kept Jyra and her party from exiting through another door at the opposite end of the hall.
Jyra crawled forward and pulled Tony’s bed against the wall near Zeers, whose efforts to relax seemed to be focusing his attention to his breathing. She beckoned for Kip to come to her side.
He shuffled over, but the left the radio behind.
“It’s nearly dead,” he explained over the roar of the wind and battle. “I can’t search for channels anymore.”
Jyra’s throat constricted. She no longer felt her heart beating nor the sweat upon her palms. She wondered if Dario had known that he was going to die before it happened. Her parents hadn’t been granted such an opportunity.
Who will speak of their memory when I’m gone? Jyra thought. She never imagined she would face her death at twenty-five, but each crash of the doors weakened the bar.
Kip leaned against the wall with Jyra. He gazed past her at the destruction beyond. Then he lifted his arms and pulled the flight suit sleeves back from his wrists.
“At least they didn’t mark us,” he said.
Jyra thought she heard a voice far away as she smiled to acknowledge Kip’s remark, when the doors burst open. The occasional shots the guards fired into the hallway tripled and Jyra closed her eyes.
But something wasn’t right. Despite the slew of gunfire, she felt no bullets striking her. Kip tapped her on the shoulder and Jyra turned to see a ship hovering by the shattered window. The cargo door was open and four people stood with guns, spraying the hallway with bullets. Several guards were already dead as they lunged straight into the onslaught.
Jyra pushed off the wall, stood up, and rolled the bed toward the ship. The shooters nodded at her and kept firing as the guards attempted to counterattack, but the doors provided ineffective cover.
Kip grabbed Zeers and hauled him after Jyra. Two people stepped from behind the shooters to help Jyra lift the bed over the threshold. Jyra didn’t recognize them; she only assisted to bring Zeers and Kip aboard. Then the cargo door slid shut, the gunfire ceased, and Jyra felt the ship silently accelerate beneath her, leaving the hospital behind.