Dark Star (16 page)

“Can’t. Got my own stuff to do.” Her gaze flickered briefly Rosie’s way. “Besides, you have to learn to figure it out for yourself some time or you’ll never get it.”

“I do all right,” he protested.

“Yeah, what did you get on the last test?”

“Shut up.” Stefan grabbed his and Rosie’s tray and got up. “I’ll see you later.” He slouched off.

Gillian watched him go. “He’s such a ganker; look at those skinny legs.”

Stefan did walk as if his body was too long for him and he was surprised by every step he took. The baggy black shorts didn’t help. Rosie felt a touch of sympathy for him as he tripped over another student’s chair leg. Then her eyes met Freddie’s. The kid was watching her again.

“I’m off to study as well.” Rosie got up abruptly, sick of his weirdness, sick of the whole place. Her head throbbed dully in time to every step and the black spots on her left eye and catch in her chest made her feel vulnerable.

She stayed in their room the rest of the afternoon bent over her study tablet, working half-heartedly on her lessons. It was quiet and she wasn’t ready for the terrible pain when it came, searing through her skull. She dropped the tablet to the floor. The implant was opening. It unfurled, and she bit her tongue in an attempt to muffle a scream. A blur of numbers and words exploded across her vision, moving too fast to be legible, making her dizzy. Rosie crouched on the bed, and tried to control it, to slow it down, but nothing helped. Then a wave of pain rolled over her body as if the nanos in the implant had tweaked her spinal cord. She fell back struggling for breath. And as fast as it had come, the pain stopped, leaving her panting and covered in sweat. It was a long terrified moment before she opened her eyes, but when she did there was nothing but darkness. She couldn’t see a thing.

She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, thinking briefly there’d been a blackout in the Enclave, but she knew she was wrong. If there had been, she would at least be able to see a glow from her tablet. But there was nothing. She was blind.

She panicked. She flung her hands out, grasping for something solid to hold to, but almost fell off the bed. No! She rocked back from the edge. Where was the wall? Her fingertips grazed it and she shuffled back up against it, chest tight and heaving.

It’s all right. It’s temporary, Rosie. Breathe. It’s the implant acting up
.

But the minutes ticked past and nothing changed. The darkness was complete. Tears started and she clamped her lips between her teeth.
Don’t cry. Keep it together. Think. What would Riley or Essie do?

Despair threatened.
Think, Rosie. Plan. Don’t let them hear you panic
.

She forced herself to count slowly to one thousand, concentrating on the numbers and only the numbers. She focused on breathing, thinking of Pip, of how she had to get through this to see him again; of her dad, she had to get through this to keep him safe. Eventually, she stopped shaking and her breath came easier, but she still couldn’t see.

Waiting for Gillian was her only option. Maybe by the time Gillian came in her sight would have come back. If not, she’d have to ask her for help. It was hard to wait though, and the darkness stayed with her like a blanket binding her in place. When the door finally opened and she heard her moving into the room, the relief was palpable. Gillian brought with her that faint scent of vanilla and the aroma of food.

“Hey, I brought you some dinner.” Rosie sensed her come closer to the bed.

“Thanks.”

The tremor in her voice was obvious and Gillian sounded puzzled when she said, “You want it?”

Rosie guessed she must be holding out the plate. “Not right now. I’m not feeling good, think I might be sick. Can you help me to the bathroom?”

“Um, yeah sure.” The bed rocked as Gillian kneeled on it and Rosie fumbled for her arm. She heard a small intake of breath.

“Yeah, you really don’t look good. We better move.” Gillian said.

“Yeah,” Rosie echoed. “Don’t want to spew on you.”

“No way.” Gillian pulled her up off the bed, too fast though and Rosie staggered against her, disorientated.

“Sorry,” Gillian whispered.

Rosie clung tight to Gillian’s arm, her fingers digging in hard as Gillian guided her to the door. There was a change in air temperature as it opened, then they were in the hall. The corridor felt vast. Rosie kept one hand on the wall, the other held tight to Gillian as she moved her along. The wall was smooth and warm. Doorway after doorway appeared and vanished beneath her fingertips, then an open space as they hit the corridor for the bathroom. Gillian rushed her down it and inside.

“Here, you better hurry,” she said for the surveillance. She propelled Rosie forwards and, a moment later, Rosie felt the edge of a shower stall under her hands. Gillian left her there.

Then making choking sounds, Gillian went to the toilet and flushed it. “Now into the shower I think,” she said.

Gillian locked them both inside the stall and switched the dry blast onto high.

“Now,” she said, “what the hell is going on?”

“I can’t see,” Rosie said.

“Yeah, I guessed that. But why? Is it some genetic defect or you get something in your eye, or what?”

Rosie felt behind her for the wall with trembling fingers and backed up until it was against her back, cool and solid. She was struggling to keep the fear from her voice. “I’ve got a thing, an implant in my head – it’s malfunctioning.”

“And blinded you?”

Rosie flinched at the blunt words. “I hope not permanently, but yes.”

“What’s it for, the implant?”

Rosie hesitated and Gillian exhaled in frustration. “If you want me to help you, I gotta know what it is.”

“It’s a cortex implant, for storage.”

“Helios made?”

Rosie hesitated again, but there didn’t seem much point in denying it. “Yes, but it wasn’t Helios who put it there; it was … a friend.”

“You mean Riley Shore?” Gillian asked and Rosie froze. How did she know that? Her expression must have been revealing, because Gillian said, “After this morning, what you told me, I asked Sulawayo a few things about you. Not anything that might make her suspicious,” she said quickly, “but about what got her into this. She told me about the guy, Riley Shore. How he’d been trying to bring down Helios for years, the things he’d done. She said she’d been in with him for a while and that was how you came into it. That you used to work for him but had switched over to us when he disappeared.”

“After Helios tried to kill him,” Rosie said. “And Sulawayo and Jebediah are still looking for him.”

“So this implant, that’s where the info you’ve got is stored? Some friend.”

“It’s not Riley’s fault it’s disintegrating,” Rosie said. “It’s bad luck, but …” She swallowed then continued, “… it might get worse if I can’t do something about it. It’s the other reason I need you to get that stylus. I have to get back to the medibay to try to fix it.”

“Right.” Gillian sounded sceptical and Rosie reached for her hand. “You can’t tell Sulawayo about it not working properly. She can’t know.”

“Because if she finds out, your deal doesn’t hang together. It’s your leverage, isn’t it?”

“It’s more than that,” Rosie said. “She’s threatened my dad, my aunt, if I don’t give her the information on it. And the person who has the MalX cure.”

“Pip?” Gillian said and Rosie flinched back against the wall, her heart leaping in fear.

“What?”

“Yeah, I know about him.” Gillian sounded ashamed. “I might not have been entirely honest with you. I’ve known about him from the start. He used to be Helios, after all. He’s not exactly unknown around here, being as he betrayed the system that raised him and all. Not that I blame him really. I know what happened to his parents.”

“So what are you going to do?” Rosie said. If Gillian sold her out now, she was finished.

After a second, Gillian said, “Do you know how you’re going to try to fix your implant?”

“There’s a machine, one I’ve seen before. I think it can do it,” Rosie said. “If I can get to it.”

“But you won’t get there alone,” Gillian said and Rosie felt her hand on her arm. “Lucky for you I don’t let my friends hang out to dry.” She grunted and Rosie heard what she thought sounded like Gillian hoisting herself up on the shower stall wall. A minute later she was back down again and Rosie felt the smooth shape of a stylus pressed into her palm.

“I lifted this from Sulawayo’s office. It will be an anonymous coded one since it’s hers – she’s not one to like being tracked – so it should get us everywhere and anywhere.”

“Thanks.” Rosie was aware of the risk Gillian was taking.

“You’re going to have to trust me though,” Gillian said. “Do what I say, exactly, or we’ll get caught.”

“Okay.” Rosie still wasn’t sure if she could trust her totally, but she was out of options.

“And if we can fix you,” Gillian said, “maybe we’ll still have time to get to Alpha’s office and see if what you were saying about him is right.”

They went back to their room and Gillian helped Rosie into bed as the lights out chime rang. Rosie was adamant they shouldn’t try for the lab until well after midnight, and they both lay silent and still in the darkness. Anxiety ate away at her as she waited. By two her palms were sore from where she’d pressed her nails into the skin, but she managed to keep it together until Gillian dealt with suspending the surveillance and they finally left the room.

She kept a tight hold of Gillian’s hand in the corridor. Without her sight, her surroundings felt huge and unknowable, the sound of her own breathing amplified. She had never felt so vulnerable. If Gillian left her, she’d be stranded.

“Wait,” Gillian whispered, and pulled up short. “Iris door.” Rosie heard the click of the stylus in the surveillance hub then the soft swish of the door receding back into its frame. She felt air on her face from the next corridor. All her senses were on high alert as she followed Gillian, tracing their route in her mind.

Gillian muttered a curse. “Someone in the caf. Wait.”

They stopped, pressed hard against a wall then Rosie felt Gillian tense. “It’s Hanto.”

Rosie’s insides hollowed and she whispered, “Is he alone?”

“Think so.” Gillian paused then exclaimed, “He’s coming!” She took off, dragging Rosie after her and she lost all sense of direction, able to do nothing but follow where Gillian led.

“In here,” Gillian whispered. There was the click of a door opening and she shoved Rosie through into a room. Her shins and hips hit something low and hard. She staggered, lost her balance and fell. Her knees hit the floor and her forehead smacked into what felt like a table leg. She gasped, trying not to cry out.

“Quiet!” Gillian whispered and snicked shut the door. Rosie stayed down, cradling her head, her skull throbbing. They waited. The sound of someone whistling passed with the thud of boots. But Hanto hadn’t heard them and after a few moments Rosie felt Gillian’s hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push so hard. Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Rosie’s head was buzzing like it was full of static, but her vision was better. The darkness had faded to grey and she could see gradations of shadow through her right eye. Relieved, she said, “I think my sight’s coming back. A bit anyway.”

“Seriously?” One of the shadows moved towards her and Rosie held out a hand. “Are the lights on in here?”

Gillian took her outstretched hand. “No.”

“We better get to the medibay, in case Hanto comes back.” Rosie began to feel a faint hope. Maybe she could fix this.

Gillian led them the rest of the way to the lab dealing with the surveillance as they went. This time, Sulawayo’s stylus seemed to stop any alerts and they didn’t meet anyone else. As they ran, Rosie began to see better from her right eye. The shadows became clearer, a greater variation in light and dark forming. They reached the medibay a little after three, by Gillian’s count.

Rosie couldn’t see enough to walk around on her own, but when Gillian flicked on one of the lights, she was able to discern colours and the definition of items in the room.

“There.” She pointed towards the machine. “That’s what I need.”

“I just knew I was going to have to play doctor,” Gillian said.

“No.” Rosie felt her way to the machine. “If you lock the stylus into the grid though, there are instructions for it; maybe you can find something to do with the implant. I checked before, but I ran out of time and I couldn’t search through it all.”

Gillian went to the holo desk. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

No, she was anything but sure, but she couldn’t stay like this. What if things got worse? Cassie had said she could die.
No. Don’t think about it
. Rosie cut that train of thought off.

“Can you see anything?” she asked Gillian. “I need some way to download the information out of the implant to a chit. I think the temple patches help with that, but last time I put them on, it was bad, so maybe there’s–”

“I found it,” Gillian interrupted. “The patches are used to download, but it says they should only be applied after the orb is connecting with the subject.”

Well, that explained what happened before. Rosie took a deep breath. “Run through what we need to do.” She felt towards the shadowy feature of the bed and lay down beneath the orb.