arbitrate (daynight) (26 page)

After a few moments, he continued. “However, if the SCI fails to learn from their mistakes, we’ll be forced to…course correct. Consider the two of you a
minor
course correction—a nudge in the right direction. You need to help the Second Chancers remind the SCI that the SCI’s mission is to
help
them achieve a rewarding second chance at life.”

“Just call me Blake Sundry, Course Corrector. Happy to help. Do you happen to have a detailed job description or handbook on how to do that?”

His lip
might
have turned up slightly, but I got the sense that Dr. Christo did not have the best sense of humor. “Let’s start by having you watch a crossover so that you can see why we do what we do…and then we’ll go from there.”

We followed him through long red corridors. He abruptly stopped at a door, placed his hand on a panel, and we entered some sort of lab. “Wait here. Don’t say a word. Just watch and follow as directed.”

A tall, blond guy dressed in white entered with a petite dark haired girl wearing what looked like a potato sack. “That’s Jackson,” Bailey whispered to me.
He’s the one taking care of Kira? Ethan’s best friend?
A pang of jealousy stabbed me through the heart, and I see now why Ethan was less than happy about the arrangement.

Sensing our presence, Jax turned and looked at us. He gave Bailey a look of sheer contempt. She blew him a kiss in return, which caused him to shake his head. To me, he gave a curt nod. Then he returned his attention to the girl. He put a comforting hand on her arm and whispered to her before helping her up onto an exam table.

A nurse entered and tended to the girl. Jax walked over to us. He held out a hand, and I shook it. “Nice to meet you, Blake.”
 

“Hi, Jax,” Bailey said, her eyes dilated with lust. She scanned his body and raised her eyebrows. “It’s just delightful to see you again.”

 
“I wish I could say the same…but alas I cannot lie.”
 

Dr. Christo said, “Jackson, why don’t you brief Blake and Bailey on Madison’s case?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the girl and sighed. “She came from a solid home. Two older brothers and two younger sisters. Parents who loved her. She was a sophomore in high school in a rural area of the Midwest on Earth. On the track team. She went out on a run one morning and never returned. A guy took her and kept her locked in his basement for more than two years—
chained
to a wall. She had to use a
bucket
to relieve herself. He raped her repeatedly every day. When she got pregnant, he handled the abortion with a metal hanger based on instructions he found on the Internet. It would have been more merciful had she died then, but she didn’t. He got more
aggressive
as time went on…liked to asphyxiate her as he took her—at first with pressure around the neck, but he escalated to plastic bags over her head. That last time he took a little too long to finish and she suffocated.

“As you can see, she
deserves
a second chance more than most.” He looked pointedly at Bailey who flinched. “She also deserves to
completely forget
every horrible thing that has happened to her, and we are going to make that happen. She’ll get to start over here on Thera. The
problem
is that gun control is a hot topic on the campaign trail for Henry King back on Earth. He wants hard and fast data about the right way to lean. And Madison’s going to be one of their test subjects. She’ll be placed in Western City—where the SCI is studying death and crime rates amongst a population where everyone owns a gun. They’re going to contrast the data against those in the adjacent Eastern City—where meditation and mutual respect are promoted, and Free City—a literal free-for-all in all respects.”
 

He pulled out a pocket map to show three cities, each about a night’s walk apart about a hundred miles inland from the sea, each at about the same latitude as Las Vegas. Even though there was a relatively large lake close, I imagine that the area had brutally hot desert conditions. Of course, they’d reenact the wild, wild West there.

I felt sick to my stomach for this broken girl—for the stuff she’d already dealt with and what was on the horizon. “Why not place her somewhere else—somewhere she will be
safe
?”

“The SCI controls the matching since they have to manage the population of each city. We deliver accordingly. It was never an issue before they started their political experiments.”

The nurse interrupted and told us the girl was ready to move on to the next step. I got a better look at her. She was the complete opposite of Bailey but equally beautiful. Bailey was tall, had stick-straight blonde hair, and blue eyes. This girl was short (perhaps five foot two inches), had wide-set deep-brown eyes and dark wavy hair that reached her mid-back. She seemed timid, not raising her eyes once to look at us.

We trailed behind as she went through her crossover process, culminating in the removal of her memories at the last stop in a round room. She was secured in a chair, a helmet-like thing was placed over her head, and minutes later every burden—and every good thing from her early years—were gone for good.

When it was done, and Jax had released her from the chair, she smiled brightly, eagerly following him through one of the many recessed doors in the room. What I didn’t know was how long that smile would last.

Present

The “private” Exiler board
meeting is about to start and Doc’s AWOL. There has been animated debate going on for nights over how to effectively scale the current “government” or whether things should be started from scratch. Since everyone has come from different cities with hugely different ways of doing things, it’s not a surprise that no one can seem to agree.

“I’ll go find him,” I tell Bailey. “I’m sure he’s in the hospital. They have been keeping him busy.”

I jog along the walkways and across the dozen rope bridges that lead me to the “hospital,” which is more like a large clinic. Given the number of people who arrived injured, they only had a fraction of the beds needed. So they took over a number of communal apartments close to the hospital to manage the caseload.

It takes a while to find Doc. He had “just left” everywhere I was pointed. I see him through the window of the single intensive care unit room and almost don’t recognize him. His long grey hair has been shorn and he’s cleanly shaven. I knock on the window and he motions for me to scrub in. I do so and notice that six patients are stuffed into the room. Doc’s attending to someone I recognize.

Madison.
I close my eyes to try to compose myself, remembering the timid girl from Heart who’d been brutally raped and killed by her kidnapper on Earth. When I open my eyes she’s staring at me but without a single bit of recognition. If possible, she looks thinner and more devastated than how she arrived at Heart.

“Blake,” Doc says. “What’cha need?”

“What happened to her?” I ask. There’s no Hippocratic oath on Thera, so Doc doesn’t hesitate to invade her privacy and share.
 

“Infected gunshot wound. She lived in Western City…apparently killed a guy in self-defense when he decided to ‘act on his attraction to her without her permission.’ Unfortunately, he got a shot off at the same time she did. The medic barely taped her up before sending her off into Exile. The camp didn’t have the facilities to perform a clean surgery, so she arrived here on her deathbed. I removed the bullet and we’re pumping her full of what antibiotics we have on hand. The hospital wasn’t exactly well stocked when we arrived.”

I lean in to him and keep my voice low. “Will she make it?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve done everything I can. Only time will tell. So…I don’t think you came here to hear this poor girl’s life story. Make it quick, so I can get back to my rounds.”
You don’t know the half of this girl’s story. Or the further dangers that lurk under the city and threaten all of you.

“Doc, the Board meeting’s starting up, and I do believe
you
are supposed to be running it. They’re all waiting on you.”

“It can’t be time already.” He looks at his watch and grumbles. “Well, look at that. Past time. Okay, well, I’ll be right along. Think you can play nurse for a minute and get a teaspoon of this into her?” He hands me a bottle of liquid and a dropper, and I slip a small note into his hands with the words, “Destroy this. Platforms rigged with C4. Will inform the As.”

I approach the girl. “Hey, sounds like you’ve been through the ringer.”

She nods but doesn’t speak.
 

I crouch beside her bed and measure out the correct dosage. “I’m no nurse, so I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Coming from Doc, this will probably be the nastiest thing you’ve ever encountered in your life. But I can assure you that he wouldn’t give it to you if you didn’t need it. Okay?”

That earns me a small smile. I push the liquid into her mouth, and she grimaces and gags on it but manages to finally swallow.

She gives me a piercing look that gives me shivers. Her voice is so quiet that I almost don’t hear her. “That’s not the nastiest thing I’ve encountered.” I wonder whether she’s talking about the man who tried to rape her in Western City or whether she
remembers.
For her sake, I hope it’s the former. With help and support, she can probably get over the fact she shot and killed the person trying to rape her. But the stuff that happened to her on Earth? I don’t know how anyone could get past that. Maybe it’s possible. I surely hope it is, but I can’t even seem to get over the
story
of it, and she had to
live
it.

I pick up her hand and give her a light kiss on it. And then I say, “Hopefully, it will be the
last
nasty thing you encounter.” Doc’s probably waiting on me, and I know Brad expects me to be taking notes at this meeting, so I have to go. Hate to leave her here all alone though. “I’ve got to run. I hope you get better soon. If possible, I’ll stop back by this morn.”

“Thank you,” she whispers and then closes her eyes. Gads, will she even make it until morn?

On my way out, I find Doc barking orders to nurses. I pull him away, and we walk together towards the meeting. Neither of us speaks. I can tell he has seen my note and is probably deep in thought over it.

The meeting is as long and dull as I’d have expected. At the end, there’s a newly revised board with various people handling their areas of expertise. There’s no mention of further conflict against the SCI—everyone knows they are listening. For now, all the focus is on getting this city functional and keeping more people from dying.

“Here you go.” I
hand him the chicken scratch notes I’d written during my trip to Art City. Brad didn’t trust me to not “lose” my SCI-issued tablet and password amongst the Exilers, so he sent me with a small notebook containing exactly twenty-five pieces of paper that “would be counted” upon my return. Thankfully, I had thought to bring a couple post-it notes from Ethan’s apartment, which I used to write notes to Doc.
 

He gave me a skeptical look. “Take a seat while I review this.” He first counted the pages, then looked over my notes. “Very thorough.” Clearly, he was surprised that I was so detailed.
 

“I do aim to please. And being a secretary has always been my dream job,” I say in a snarky tone. “There’s overcrowding—in the housing and the hospital, the food’s rather…bland, and the board’s pretty chaotic but other than that…”

He taps his finger on his chin. “I hear Kira Donovan was there.” Well, by all means Brad, jump right into the difficult topics.

“Yeah, but I didn’t interact with her. I think she was helping Ethan with intake.” It’s true…other than the first night, I didn’t run into her at all.

“You took up fishing?”
 

He’s fishing about my fishing…and I was indeed fishing for information on my actual fishing expedition. I guess we’re both fishermen. As long as he doesn’t know about my middle-of-the-day field trip under the platform I’m good. “You would too if you were fed gruel three times a day. I’d have liked to snag a gator, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it back up to the platform.”

“What about the girl in the hospital?”

I need to make him work harder for information. “What girl?”
 

He shuffles through some notes on his desk. “A…Madison Rowland. You reportedly went to see her on a few occasions?”

I cock my head at him, trying to figure out his angle before responding. “Technically, the first time I wasn’t there to see her… I was there to escort Doc Daryn to his board meeting since he can’t seem to keep track of time himself.” The less organized and capable he thinks the Exilers are, the better. “His patient was a girl dying of an infected gunshot wound. She didn’t seem to have any family or friends, so I stopped by a couple times when I was bored. I do believe I was directed not to ‘hang out’ with my Exiler friends…and I could only do so much fishing, particularly when I got as sick of the fish as I did the gruel.”
 

Madison was still in the ICU when I left.
Did she make it?
 

After I’d told Doc about her history, he found a psych-type to help her deal with all the crap she had been through (at least, the stuff she remembered) which made me feel a little better about leaving. It was still rough. She’d gotten a little attached to me—or was it the other way around? I don’t like the fact that she’s on Brad’s radar.
I’ve got to figure out a way to go back and make sure she is okay.

Brad interrupts my train of thought. “How’s your son? For someone who claims to have little interaction with Kira, you’ve been spending an awful lot of time over at their place. Did I mention that I’ve moved in next door to them? I’m sure that I’ll be seeing you over there…I can play with my grandson while you play with your son. Won’t that be fabulous?”

Well…crap…I did not see that coming. I haven’t spent
any
time with Aiden. If I suddenly stop showing up there, it’ll look suspicious. If I keep up the same schedule, that will be a whole lot of “baby time.” If Brad sees us together, it’ll show that I’m clueless around him. I’m screwed. “Aiden’s great. Getting big and all that. I hang out with Ethan too. He is my brother, remember?”