Chapter 82
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
AIRIK
Sometime later, after he had loosely stitched and wrapped his arm, Airik lay listless on the cot, with one thought looping endlessly in his mind.
Kudra breaks minds. Kudra breaks minds. Kudra breaks minds.
Lucky did not remember him. And he’d been exposed to kudra for much less time than Nora had.
There was a knock at the door.
Airik didn’t move.
“Um…” a woman’s hesitant voice said, “I’m supposed to take back the stuff you didn’t use. We need it for Medical.”
His heart soared with the irrational thought that they’d given him materials that could be used for Nora. Airik jumped up and pushed the bag through the hatch.
Through the small window in the door, he could see a woman standing on the other side. She was as short as Nora and wore round panes of glass over her eyes, connected with a thin gold wire across her face.
Her gaze flicked up. “Oh!” She stumbled, dropping the bag of supplies. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
Airik pushed back, having no interest in any human but Nora.
“They didn’t put him down,” the woman suddenly said.
Turning back, Airik bent down to get a closer look through the window.
“The cyborg, I mean.”
“Cyborg?” Airik’s voice felt gritty and wrong in his mouth. “I do not have that word.”
“The animal you had. He’s a cyborg—part machine. That’s what we call them.” She frowned, studying his expression. “Are you—are you like that?”
Airik shook his head, a collapsing sensation sucking the air from his lungs.
He had heard of animals with metal skeletons used in battle, but it had been just a rumor—unethical, the Ourex had deemed it.
Yet with how valiantly Lucky fought, his entire body transforming with longer fangs and claws, how could Airik not have seen it before?
He had been blind to everything in the world he had lived in.
“Is he…okay?” Airik braced against the door, exhaustion threatening to take him.
The woman looked down at a tablet in her hand.
“He’s sedated. Sleeping. And the scan showed him clear of any pathogens.
I mean, there’s nothing alive in his body that shouldn’t be.
” She pushed the two round glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“But there’s some kind of…thing in his brain and on his nerves that shouldn’t be there.
It’s interfering with our scanning equipment.
” She leaned closer to the window. “Is that…what happened to Miss Shaw?”
Airik closed his eyes, but it didn’t stop the flow of hot tears. He nodded.
“Oh…I’m sorry.” After a second, she unexpectedly said, “But…I can tell you she’s still with us.”
His eyes shot open to find her adjusting an electronic device clipped to her ear, now revealed that she’d pushed her short hair back. “Is she… Does she remember what happened? Is she talking?”
“She’s not awake yet—” Her voice cut off, and she slammed a hand over the device. He heard shouting from under her hand. One of the voices was Davis’s.
“I-I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more information than that.” Her skin was pale and shimmered with sweat. This woman was not in control of anything.
“Thank you,” he whispered, grateful for the small mercy she’d shown him. If this world were anything like his, she’d pay dearly for it later.
He waited for her to leave, but she stayed. “Something else?”
“Yeah… I’m supposed to ask…” She hesitated, as if the words were forced out. “If there’s a way to open the…other one’s pod.”
A growl burst from his chest before he could stop it. The woman jumped back, clutching the tablet to her chest.
“No.”
The woman’s shoulders sagged, as if the answer had been a relief. She adjusted the glass circles on her face again as she caught her breath. “Is he…a friend? A prisoner?”
“My brother,” Airik said, turning his head to catch the frantic orders barking in the woman’s ear.
She winced, shaking her head. “I-I’m sorry, but that’s not an acceptable answer.” She looked up, wide-eyed desperation behind her glasses. “Please tell me how to open it. We need to monitor him, too.”
Airik pushed away from the door, facing the center of the ceiling where a black box blinked red.
Having spent the last day reading the laws and covenants, checking human words and customs in the exo-net until the words blurred, Airik had developed a suspicion.
Humans coveted very little—wealth, knowledge of what happened after death, and the power to tame all that was unknown.
Though love and kindness were taught to children, it seemed their value lessened with age.
Nora had been an anomaly. A well of love he greedily wanted to drink from, knowing how scarce it was.
Even in Valhalla, Airik had learned that he had to enter into a contract and mark above an arbitrary line, declaring his love and loyalty to her.
The virtue itself wasn’t enough—it needed regulations to control it.
Otherwise they could deny him the chance to sleep beside Nora in the same bed and share his life with her.
He had to pay for the license, so in preparation, he had started listing what he could trade for credits.
He had decided on his labor because his weapons were already spent saving Nora.
But now, knowing they didn’t intend to give him a choice, he let the rising wave of anger crest.
“Commander Davis of Valhalla, my brother is not a weapon to give.” The light was on, and he had to assume someone listened. “I said I will share anything that is mine if Nora is brought back to me. Alive. Whole. I have waited. Hours and hours. With no proof of her life.”
He heard the woman’s footsteps fading fast down the hall.
“You should listen well, because I don’t like to repeat things twice.
I am here for one reason. If that reason dies, I will have no purpose or interest in this world.
To be free, I will destroy it. I do not care what other life on this planet will be lost. The ship will hear my words—even from here.
” His heart ached as he spoke, unsure whether he was telling the truth or lying.
The drozekar wouldn’t hear him, but in this moment he wished it would, and he hated himself for it.
“If you want to see the strength of my weapons, I will show you. But know that it will tear this planet apart, and without Nora, I will be glad to be caught in its end, too.”
A rough wind blew sand against the window. Airik stared at the ceiling, waiting.
For the first time in days, the lights mercifully went out with a soft click, and the red lights dimmed.
With a shuddering sigh, he sank to the floor. There was just enough light coming from the window in the door for Airik to see the edge of his hand.
With the sharp tip of his knife, he carved the fading traces of Nora’s teeth into his skin, making sure to offset her one crooked tooth apart from the rest.
As he made the final cut, his arm went limp, succumbing to a biological need to sleep. The knife slipped from his hand, and he was gone, with the final thought that he’d meet Nora in his dreams.