Gabriel: Zero Point (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) (4 page)

But there was something else he saw in her eyes. Something that said there was more to this procedure that she was letting on. Something that… pained her.

He shook off the thought and rubbed his eyes, pressing on them until he saw stars. Opening them, he saw Knowles still staring back at him. She had just put into words what he never could.

“Zero point,” he said.

She nodded. “A new beginning.”

He looked at the capsule.
A new beginning, as a HAMR
. Knowles was right. He should be proud to have been selected. Or recruited was more like it. Shanghaied. But even though his apprehension was still pinging at him, he knew this was his next step. His parents, his brother, his family: gone. His fellow OCS graduates, scattered among the stars. The Navy was really all he had. He’d already given his life to them. And now he’d give his body and mind. He knew it was the right choice.

“All right. I’m in. What’s next?”

She turned, walked back to the table, and picked up a small piece of folded cloth. She walked back to Gabriel. “Put your gear bag under the table there, then strip and fold the clothes you’re wearing, placing them on the end of the table.”

She handed him the folded cloth. He took it by one corner. The folds fell apart to reveal an absurdly tiny pair of paper-thin men’s briefs.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said.

“That’s ‘you’ve got to be shitting me, ma’am’, Lieutenant,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “The tank will be filled with an oxy-sedation fluid which will immobilize your body and respiration systems while you are submerged. The fluid will keep your blood oxygenated and allow the nanites to move throughout your body without any white blood cells trying to kill them. This procedure requires a minimum of twenty hours to complete, so we can’t have you awake or moving during the process. We also can’t have you wearing any clothes that prevent the auto-injectors from penetrating your skin in the proper locations. Hence, paper underwear.”

Gabriel grimaced, still staring at the briefs. “Why not just a birthday suit?”

Her eyes twinkled again. “That’s completely up to you. However, there is some disorientation when coming out of the tank. I’d hate to have you wandering around Cielo, buck naked and dripping wet, wondering where the bathroom is.”

Bathroom
. “Wait. You said twenty hours? What about food, or… waste?”

“All handled by the oxy fluid. It will nourish your body, though not like a double cheeseburger, and remove waste as well.”

His stomach growled at the mention of a burger. “So I’ll be breathing in my own waste?”

Knowles cocked her head. “Hmmm, never thought of it that way. Good point. We’ll have to look into that in the future. But in the meantime, Biermann says you haven’t eaten in quite some time, which is good. So let’s get started.”

“Fantastic,” he muttered. He slid his gear bag under the table with one foot and tossed the briefs on the table. Knowles turned her attention back to her nanoscope. He took one last glance at the capsule, then stripped down.

Chapter 4

The plastic was unnaturally cold against his skin as he stretched out in the capsule. It felt more metal than plastic. The glass lid perched above his head, still hinged open, blurring the designs on the ceiling panels, probably leftover from the original luxury suites. He wriggled to find a comfortable position.
 

“All set, Lieutenant?”

Knowles’s face appeared above him, looking down into the capsule.
 

“The underwear itches,” he replied. “Other than that, yeah, I suppose so.”

She smiled. “Itchy underwear will be the least of your annoyances. I forgot to tell you. The oxy fluid is ice cold. And the scout nanites will be injected prior to sedation, so you may feel some… discomfort the first few minutes.”

“Scout?”

“They pave the way for the rest of the machines. Scouting pathways, blood vessels, arteries, and the like. Just making it easier for the others. But some patients have complained of some initial pain. No worries, Lieutenant. You’ll be under sedation in a matter of moments after the process begins.”

“This gets better and better,” he growled.

Knowles’s face disappeared for a few seconds, then returned. “Tank is online. Relax, take a few deep breaths. Like I said, the fluid is ice cold and will startle your body when it enters your lungs. Go with it. In the womb, we all breathed like this. It’s natural.” She smiled. “Sort of.”

Her face disappeared and reappeared again. “The process has started,” she said as the glass lid began to slowly descend. “I’ll see you on the other side, Lieutenant Gabriel.” Just before she pulled her head back, he saw the same flicker of emotion on her face he had seen a few minutes ago. Sadness? Worry? Before he could say anything, her face was gone.

He closed his eyes as the lid connected with the capsule with a thunk. He heard air hissing, then from under him came the freezing cold fluid. His body tensed and he clenched his teeth, trying desperately to push the thought of drowning aside. The liquid poured in and cascaded over the tops of his legs, then stomach and chest. His skin puckered at the cold and he took short, sharp breaths. His fingers curled, nails pressing into his palms.
 

The liquid reached his mouth and he squeezed it shut, involuntarily holding his breath. He knew the process; it was the same as long-range high-acceleration ships used for inertial dampening for crewmembers in stasis. But to a human body, it was completely unnatural, regardless of what Knowles said about the womb.
 

He was now completely submerged and shivering uncontrollably. His lungs burned for air. He opened his eyes, and the freezing liquid stabbed at his eyeballs. It was as if looking through pale blue gelatin.
 

His lungs could take no more, and he gasped for breath. Spasms racked his body as the fluid poured down his throat and into his airway. He spasmed several more times, and the image of being pushed under by an ocean wave flashed across his mind. He willed his body to relax, and finally the fluid filled his lungs and his body settled. One last gasp and spasm, and Gabriel was breathing liquid.

Through the rushing waterfall sound of the liquid in his ears, he heard a mechanical whirring. He felt a pinprick on his right thigh, then a matching one on his left. Six more pinpricks: one in each arm, one each on either side of his rib cage, one in the bottom of each foot.
The scout injections
, he thought. He imagined them like cartoon robots, running down red corridors to their jobs, leaving bread crumbs behind for others to follow. He started to smile, when he felt a burning sensation in both feet. The image of the fire ants came back to him as the same burning crept over his legs, then sides, then arms. Suddenly the burning was coursing throughout his body, and he began to panic. This wasn’t the discomfort Knowles alluded to.
 

The burning intensified, like miniature plasma torches being placed against his skin in a thousand places. He struggled to move, but the paralytic chemicals in the fluid had taken effect. He was immobilized, the nanites started their work on him, and he was still awake.
 

He grunted as the burning continued. He couldn’t even grit his teeth, and his eyes were still open, staring at blue-tinged ceiling panels. Then the sedation kicked in. His vision began to gray, but the burning increased to an unbearable level.

Gabriel screamed in silence.

“Evan, where are you?”

He heard his mother’s voice and giggled. She’d never find him in here. He was tucked into the roots of a large mangrove tree at the edge of the river, where it emptied into the ocean. The water rushed by him, cascading over rocks and fallen trees, making a whooshing sound he could easily blend into and disappear.
 

The mangrove was his fort. He was safe inside it. No one could find him, and even if they did, they’d never be able to get to him. The roots were far too close together for an adult to squeeze through. Even his brother Zack was too big, and that was saying something for a nine-year old. Being six had its advantages.
 

The whooshing increased, and the water rushed by faster and louder than he had ever seen before. His mother had told him the day before to be careful at the edge of the river, as the rains had fallen hard up in the Blue Mountains. He didn’t know what she meant by that, as the mountains were hours away by car, so what did that have to do with the river? But as he watched the river rushing by, now swollen and agitated, carrying more and more tree stumps and debris, he got scared.

“Mom!” But he knew his voice wouldn’t carry over the rushing water. He couldn’t hear her anymore either. He started to push out from the mangrove when suddenly a huge tree floated past and crashed into the roots in front of him. He barely got his fingers off the roots before it hit. The impact of the tree crushed the roots, pressing them in towards him. He yelled louder when he realized his only way out of the mangrove was now blocked by the tree and crushed roots.
 

“Mom!” His heart thudded in his chest, and he frantically tried to spot an opening he could fit through.
There!
A space between two roots led out, but directly into the angry river, not towards the calm ocean. He had no choice.

He pushed towards the opening, forcing his body between the roots. Halfway through, his hips got caught. He pushed at the roots behind him with one hand while pulling himself forward using hanging branches in front of him. All around him the water rose.

“Mom!” he screamed again as the water reached his neck. He sputtered as a wave crashed over his face. He pushed and pulled, but his body was stuck. And the river grew more angry.

The water closed over his head. It was unusually cold.

Chapter 5

Gabriel’s fist lashed out at the mangrove and struck something hard and unyielding. He coughed, and thick viscous fluid bubbled up through his throat. The warm water receded around him with soft gurgles. Both ears popped, and he opened his eyes.

The river and the mangrove were gone, leaving behind nothing but dripping glass in front of his face. He reached up with the same hand he had punched with and touched the glass. With a hiss, the seal popped and the lid of the capsule slowly rose.

He sat up, coughing up more thick liquid. Aches penetrated his muscles, and he slowly grabbed the edges of the capsule. The pale blue liquid was gone, replaced by clear water that drained beneath him. His head swam with dizziness.
Must be the spin cycle after the rinse
, he thought.

He looked around the room, once again tinged in red lighting as it was when he arrived.
How long ago?
He sent a command to his neuretics to check the time, but received no response. He pulled up his neuretics’ Mindseye visual overlay and was greeted by a static-filled image with two white words: SYSTEM REBOOT.

Software upgrade, he remembered. He dismissed the Mindseye feed and rotated his body to swing his legs over the side of the capsule. Pain shot through his system as muscles pressed against bone and tendon. It felt to him like a terrible case of the flu.
Or getting my ass kicked
, he thought. The nanites must have done a thorough job in moving throughout his body, as the aches came from every possible source, right down to his toes. He looked down at his pruned, dripping feet and flexed his toes, being rewarded with ten distinct cracks.

He looked around the lab; even the slight motion of turning his head sent pain shooting from his shoulder blades through the base of his skull, and the dizziness came again.
Disorientation indeed.

The lab was empty. No sign of Knowles. His folded clothes were where he’d left them on the table, along with a bottle of water. With a heave, he lifted himself out of the capsule. His wet feet slapped on the hard floor, and he grabbed onto the edge of the capsule to support himself. With a deep breath, he flexed his shoulders backwards and twisted side to side. The cracks and pops sounded like firecrackers. His body felt swollen, like he had had too much to eat and drink. He let go of the capsule and looked at his forearms. Whether a trick of the lighting or his dizziness, he swore they looked bigger, and were crisscrossed with bulging veins. He clenched one fist and felt the muscles pull down the length of his arm.
Yes, definitely different.

The room was quiet save for the last few burbles of the water draining in the capsule. The wall screens were off as before, and Knowles’s nanoscope was powered down. All of the specimen containers were gone. The room was, for all intents and purposes, empty. Not exactly how he pictured his emergence from the procedure.
Zero point, sure.

He looked down and saw the briefs were still dripping water down his legs, and felt a sudden chill as the cool lab air hit his skin. He took tentative steps to the table, and an image of a stumbling newborn giraffe flashed across his mind. In spite of his aching body, he smiled.
 

“Hey doc,” he called as he grabbed his shirt. His congested voice sounded like he was just getting over a chest cold. “I’m out.”

As he pulled the shirt over his head, his neuretics signaled a successful reboot and came back online. He queried them for elapsed time, and page after page of data returned, too fast for him to keep up. He sent a stop command, realizing he had a whole new system to learn. He remembered his upgrade from Level Three to Four mil rets and the days it took going through all the new capabilities. He knew he’d be in for a steep learning curve.
 

The data showed twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes since he entered the capsule. He pulled off the wet briefs and got dressed, then socks. His boots were under the table. He started to reach for them when he saw something out of place in the corner of his vision. He stood back up and looked over the table, but didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. He turned his head slightly, hoping his peripheral vision would pick it out again.
There.
 

He picked up the water bottle. Behind it was a round red mark, in stark contrast to the spotless white lab table. He peered closer.
Blood?