Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (46 page)

Tatiana whimpered and fisted her
hands, her heart shooting streams of acid through her veins.  “Please don’t do
this.”

The girl smiled at her.  “If you
pass out, I’m going to stop everything to revive you, then I’m going to
administer a powerful stimulant.  Unfortunately, that will also make it hurt much,
much worse, so please try and stay conscious, okay?  I want you to experience
everything
.” 
She gave Tatiana another icy smile, then the blade was descending, and Tatiana
emptied her lungs in a scream.

Chapter
41

Jersey

“Steele?  Yeah.  I got my eyes on
her right now.  Nah, totally dead.”

Killer
, Wideman giggled.

No
, Magali screamed
inwardly. 
No!  Go away, just go away!
  Whether she was talking to the
Nephyr or Wideman, she wasn’t sure.

“Like what, a broken leg?” the
man went on.  “Nah, none that I can see.  Looks like she fell on her back.”

Please go away,
Magali
whimpered inside.

“I dunno, a couple days?  She’s
cold as an ice cube.” 

…
Cold as an ice cube?
Magali’s startled mind asked.  He hadn’t even touched her.  Nephyrs had
heat-sensors built into their skin.  There was no way he couldn’t see she
wasn’t alive.

“Yeah, sure.  Will do.”  She
heard the footsteps move closer.

Can’t let him get too close,
Magali realized, suddenly launching into another panic.  If he got close enough
to take her gun from her, it was all over. 
Pleaaase,
her ragged mind
whispered. 
Please just go…

She heard the Nephyr slow and
start to kneel.  “Hey there,” he said softly.  “How are you doing?”

Magali snapped her eyes open and
whipped the gun around, holding it up between them.  It was a Nephyr, clad in
the same jet black gear as the others, the same gold filigreed skin, though she
didn’t recognize him as one from the cave.  “Back off and keep your hand from
your ear,” she ordered.  Nephyrs had a special transmitter built into the skin
under their ear that allowed them to make calls to camp computer systems,
ships, or other Nephyrs.

The Nephyr hesitated, looking
down at her gun warily.  Very slowly, he held up both his hands, palms facing
her, and ducked his head in a gesture of peace.  “I heard what you did for
those eggers.”  He gave her a timid smile. 

Lying,
she thought,
trembling as she watched him down the barrel of the gun.

After a long pause, he gently offered,
“My name’s Jersey.”

“I have to kill you,” Magali
whispered.

He made a nervous laugh.  “Uh,
Miss, you could always lower the gun and we could talk.”

Magali shuddered inside.  She
could, too, couldn’t she?  But if she did, he would take her gun away, and she
was
never
letting that happen again.  Never.  Her entire body shaking,
she said, “It isn’t happening again.  I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” the guy said softly, “I
know this is gonna be hard to believe, considering I look just like that psycho
Steele, but I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“That’s right,” Magali whispered
hoarsely.  “You’re not.” 
Never again.
  Her finger tightened on the
trigger.

The Nephyr’s blue-green eyes
widened and flickered to something above and behind her.  Her mind stumbling
from exhaustion, Magali hesitated, and in that horrified moment, she realized
she had never ascertained he didn’t have a partner.  She turned to look over
her shoulder. 

Inhumanly fast, the Nephyr lunged
forward, catching her arm with his glittering fingers and pushing it sideways. 
Magali, her body bruised and exhausted, was too slow in pulling the trigger. 
The round glanced off the side of his cheek, hitting the cliff behind them. 
Magali screamed and tried to wrestle it free, to get off another shot, but the
arm that held her had all the hydraulic strength of a crane, keeping the gun
inexorably pointed at the sky.

Then the Nephyr swallowed and
glanced over his shoulder, saw the singed mark in the rock where the round had
penetrated, then looked back at her, his aquamarine eyes searching hers.  He
reached up with his other hand and, with something akin to gentleness, pulled
the gun from her fingers and set it behind him.  “You want something to eat?”

Magali shuddered and went limp under
his brutally strong grip.  His unnaturally smooth fingers felt like warm glass
against her forearm.  She remembered the last time she’d felt that unnatural
smoothness, the crystalline hardness against her skin, and she swallowed back
bile.  She ducked her head to her chest in despair, her entire body shaking
around her.  “Just kill me.  Please.”

“Erm.  How about hot chocolate,
instead?”

Magali frowned at the sand
between their knees.  Then, slowly, she lifted her head so she could see his
face.

Under the glittering circuitry,
he offered her a shy smile.  “You know how to remove a lifeline, right?”

Magali’s exhausted mind
stuttered. 
A trick,
she finally thought.  It had to be some sort of
trick.  She glanced over her shoulder, looking for the other Nephyrs.

“I’m alone,” the Nephyr said
softly.  Very slowly, he released her forearm and lowered his hand, watching
her reaction closely.  When Magali didn’t scramble away from him, he offered,
“If you get on the ship with me, I’ll take you to Silver City.”

A trick!
her ragged mind
screamed. 
Another trick!
  She couldn’t trust him.  Couldn’t trust
them
. 
They lied with smiles on their faces, gentleness in their touch.  Just like
Anna.  Magali felt like she was swimming.  She could hear Wideman chanting in
the background, could see the edges of her mind fraying, the corruption eating
inward.  She felt herself teetering, very close to falling—somewhere.  Close to
letting go.  Close to—

The Nephyr lowered his head so he
could peer up into her face.  “My name’s Jersey Brackett, of the original
Brackett clan that helped colonize the South Tear.  I was born in Six Bears,
thirty-five years ago zoomtime.  They drafted me when I was fourteen.  Spent
five years in cryo, each way.”

Magali felt part of her snap back
into place.  The Bracketts were a legend—before they were all killed in the
Yolk mines.  Six Bears was a ghost-town south of the Tear.  Between the Yolk
drafts and the Nephyrs, there was nothing left.  Her world came back into focus
as she frowned at him.  “What?”

Very slowly, still holding his
hands up in peace, the Nephyr got to his feet and retrieved the gun.  Then,
tilting his head sideways at the ship, he said, “Come on?  I’ll tell you the
rest onboard, once we’ve got some food in you, okay?  You don’t look too hot.” 
He eased his way sideways, to the base of the ramp, gesturing into the ship’s
bowels.

Another trick,
Magali
thought, the remaining strands of her mind straining to the edge of breaking. 
It
has to be another trick.
  Half of her wanted to just follow him up the
ramp, and half of her wanted to hurtle into the Snake and suck in as much of
its acidic water into her lungs as she could before he could pull her out.

“Please,” the Nephyr said.  His
voice actually sounded anguished.  “Trust me.  I’m not gonna hurt you.  I’ve
been looking for you for a really long time.”

They want me alive,
Magali’s mind babbled. 
Alive for more of their games.

The Nephyr seemed to droop,
watching her.  He glanced up at the sun, then back at her.  Then, gingerly, he
set the gun inside the ship and started walking back towards her, pulling off
his shirt.

…pulling off his shirt?

Then he was kneeling beside her
again, poking her head through the hole in the jet-black cloth, then easing her
hands through the arm-holes, the unnatural hard-smooth of his hands brushing
her skin as he dragged the hem downward to cover her chest and back.

Magali could find no resistance
as the Nephyr then took her by the palm and gently pulled her to her feet. 
“Come on.  I’ve got food and water on the ship.  Nice little bunk, too, so you
can lay down.”

He wants to put me in his
bed. 
Magali froze, coming to a halt, her heart starting to pound like a
jackhammer.

The Nephyr hesitated, giving her
a pained look.  “It only fits one person.  It’s a scout ship.  Only built for a
crew of two, and somebody’s supposed to be at the controls at all times.”

Magali didn’t believe him.  She
couldn’t
believe him.  But when he gently put an arm around the small of her back and
guided her into the tiny belly of the ship, she let him ease her into the
shadows beyond.

“Okay, stay here a second,” the
Nephyr said.  He hit the button for the ramp and triggered the airlock, then,
with a last glance at her, turned and ducked through the entrance to the
forward compartment and she heard tinny rustlings inside.

Magali’s eyes found the gun,
still sitting on the carpet where he’d set it.  In a daze, she squatted and
retrieved it.  Then, seeing the tiny bunk the Nephyr had mentioned, she sat on
it and stared at the clothing and gear racks on the other side of the narrow
hallway, considering what it would be like to finally put the muzzle to her
brain and pull the trigger.

A few minutes later, the Nephyr
returned with a steaming cup in one hand, a bowl in the other, his glittering
chest covered with another ebony shirt.  He had already ducked through the aft
compartment door when he saw the gun in her lap.  He hesitated.  His blue-green
eyes shifted to her face and she saw anxiousness, there.  Clearing his throat,
he completed the last few steps to ease himself down onto the bunk beside her.

“Hot chocolate,” he said, offering
her a plain steel cup filled with steaming liquid.  Magali glanced down at it,
saw the glittering fingers clutching the handle of the cup, then looked back up
at him, feeling like she were watching a puppet in a traveling peddler’s show.

The Nephyr cleared his throat
nervously, then set the cup aside and offered her the bowl.  “Chicken soup,” he
said, moving the spoon along the rim so that it was facing her.  “With extra
helpings of chicken, ‘cause the Nephs would bitch if Supply skimped out on the
meat.”  He laughed uncomfortably.  When Magali didn’t even look at it, he
lowered his voice and said, “Please?”

Magali dropped her head.  For a
long moment, Magali just stared down at the carrots and noodles floating amidst
the yellowish broth, unable to comprehend it.  Then, almost as if her limbs
were powered by someone else, she reached up and took the bowl.

The Nephyr seemed to relax
slightly as her numb fingers found the spoon and she began to eat.  He watched closely,
but made no move to take the gun from her lap.  Instead, after a moment, he reached
up and dragged a fuzzy green blanket out of the overhead bin and gingerly wrapped
it around her shoulders as she spooned the soup into her mouth.  When she was
finished, he again offered her the hot chocolate, handle-first.

Magali took it mechanically,
still waiting for the trick.  Her eyes found the mark of Captain on the
Nephyr’s bare arm, embedded in the glittering skin just above the elbow.  A
golden profile of a wolf; head low, one leg lifted.  It rested in the same
little black-and-gold patch as Steele’s arrow-clenching fist of colonel.  In
bold golden numbers above the wolf stood a proudly-emblazoned 43.

Seeing her stare, the Nephyr
cleared his throat uncomfortably and crossed his arms, dropping his hand
nonchalantly over the patch.  He got up and, one hand still covering the skin
of his arm, dragged a black, unmarked long-sleeved shirt from one of the
clothes bins, then tugged it over his head.  Magali watched the wolf disappear
under another layer of black before he sat down beside her again.  “Would you
like water, instead?”

Magali’s eyes remained on the
spot above his elbow, where she knew the golden 43 rested just under the thin
layer of cotton…

“Hey.”  The Nephyr touched her
chin and dragged her face up to meet his.  “I’m not like them.  I swear.”  He
looked so genuine, so honest…

Magali had to look away.  She
glanced down into the swirling brown liquid, instead.  If it had been Anna, it
would’ve been laced with some sort of chemical…

“It’s not drugged,” the Nephyr
said softly.

Magali’s eyes lifted back to his
face.  For several long minutes, she just studied his face, trying to determine
the catch.  “How do I know,” she managed, through dry, cracked lips, “This
isn’t a trick?”

The Nephyr’s blue-green eyes
darkened for the first time.  “I went through enough mind-games in Nephyr
Academy.  Was hard enough to keep myself on the straight-and-level.”  His eyes
grew distant and his mouth twisted in distaste.  “I don’t need to spread it
around.”

Like he’s talking about a
disease,
Magali realized, watching him.

The Nephyr seemingly shook
himself, then took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  “Okay then.  I’m
gonna go head up the controls and get us the hell out of range of the camp
computer.  You should probably get some sleep.  If you don’t want the
chocolate, drop the whole thing in the waste bin and I’ll take care of it
later.”  He started to stand and turned, his back to her.

“Aren’t you going to take the gun
from me?” Magali blurted.

The Nephyr hesitated and looked
back at her.  “You gonna use it on yourself?”

Magali thought about it.  “No.”

“Then no.”  He ducked through the
door and disappeared.  A few minutes later, she felt the ship’s engines power
on and the entire vessel jiggled as the landing gear began to retract.

Magali looked down at her hot
chocolate, thinking about the sorts of things that Anna would have put into
it.  Her eyes flickered to the gun, then to the blanket around her shoulders
and the empty soup-bowl resting on the bed beside her.  After a long moment, she
brought the cup to her mouth and drank.