Chapter Eighteen
Thanh
I stood in a field of spring grass, a perfect sky overhead and the gentlest of breezes stirred my hair. I knew this place; it was a few miles from the testing facility where I’d brought my shuttle with the experimental engine I’d built at the Academy.
It was the place I’d crashed.
And as if conjured by me, the sharp invasion of smoke and burning metal made my nose wrinkle. I could feel the heat of a fire at my back and I knew what I’d find if I turned around. I’d had this dream often, and always, every time, I would turn around and see myself broken and burnt in the wreckage of my shuttle.
But this time, I didn’t.
Instead I was whisked away to a different place that smelled of antiseptic and blood.
There was no sky overhead. Instead it was gray ceiling tiles and bright lights.
There was no gentle breeze but recycled air that was frigid from being processed through an air conditioner.
I shivered with more than the chill in the air as I looked around.
This was the place I’d been given my symbiote. I knew it like I knew my name. But I’d never been able to see it this clearly before.
It was a pretty standard medical facility as far as I could tell, with a long, sterile corridor with doors on one side, a nurse’s station and the uniformed color of dreary gray.
“I don’t want to be here,” I whispered, fear starting to creep its way up my throat.
I know, but it’s important.
The voice was beautiful, like a soft melody made with strings and bells. Though I’d never heard it before, not like this, I knew it was Narrou. Where the hell was I really? I couldn’t truly be at this place; it burned down while I was there. That’s why I recovered at a completely different facility, and likely had no memory of my time here.
The hallway shifted and then became what it was before. Back and forth, as if a different image were trying to break through.
And someone was laughing.
“No, no this isn’t…I have to get out of here.”
Just a moment longer.
“No! I don’t want to be here, you don’t understand.”
The lights went out and then emergency lights switched on, and the neat, clean hallway was awash in blood and bodies.
This was the nightmare I couldn’t completely understand, this was that night.
“You have to get me out of here, he’s looking for me.”
It’s important for me to understand what happened to Tohm-Tohm so I can fix it .
“What do you mean?”
The sound of metal against metal, screams and that laughter. It was coming closer and I turned, running as fast as I could. But like a dream, everything shifted and suddenly I was on a table, strapped down on my stomach, trapped.
“No! Narrou help me!”
The laughter was getting closer.
“Narrou, please!”
This isn’t real, my dear. You’re safe.
“I’m not, he’s coming.”
A growl sounded around me, like a guard dog that was not happy its charge was distressed. That was a new sound, and I had no idea where it was coming from, but it made the laughter stop.
He’s fighting me. That’s a good sign.
“Who is?”
Tohm-Tohm, he’s protecting you. It means he wasn’t forced to bond with you, he chose you. It’s a good sign for the healing.
The scenario was ripped away and I was floating in something warm, soft. Maybe it was a dream, and I was fine with that because I was so tired. But then I woke up in the recovery facility and I was staring at myself on a bed, IVs in both arms, and my back…
It was carved up, deep trenches on either side of Tohm-Tohm, like someone had been trying to fillet the symbiote from my body. That's what happened, what I couldn't completely remember in that dream. The research facility where they'd implanted Tohm-Tohm, the reason it had burned, why it terrified me. It was because I'd been attacked.
The voice, the low maniacal laughter. He had done this to me, to Tohm-Tohm.
I should've died.
So should he. There was so little of him left, how had he survived?
“Oh my god…Tohm-Tohm.”
He was so small, not having yet grown long enough to fit my spine yet. But that wasn’t what made tears spill down my cheeks. His dozens of tendrils, that extended on either side of his slim body, were bloodied. A good quarter of them weren’t even there anymore. And the ones that were had been severed so badly that they were barely hanging on.
“How are we going to keep this thing connected to her so it can grow back?” someone asked.
“We have a metal casing for that,” another one answered. “But the way we have to do this, she’ll be wearing it the rest of her life.”
“We have no idea what that will do to her or the symbiote.”
“That’s why this is called experimental surgery,” said my father. “She’s the only one of this batch that survived. Patch her up, get her walking, even if it’s with a cane or a walker. We have a deadline with my investors and the GUP and I need something to show off in six months.”
“Six months! Sir, we don’t know if the symbiote will survive the night.”
“Then get another one.”
“It’s not that easy. When they bond, there’s a residual hormone that causes the Human to reject other symbiotes, sometimes with lethal side effects. And in the case of patient six-A, the one who injured your daughter, we now know that symbiote replacement can result in a psychological break. We still don’t know how many others are going to wake up from their induced comas with extreme psychological changes. More testing is needed.”
“I don’t want your excuses, you assured me you could handle the procedures, that your time tables were solid. And now I hear that you lied to me?”
“No, sir,” the second doctor said, swallowing in fear. “It’s just…we didn’t sign up for this. The death toll is —”
“Not your concern.”
“And our colleagues’ deaths?” the first one challenged. “We also didn’t sign up to get massacred by a maniac.”
“If you feel you’re being mistreated, I can, of course, withdraw your more than generous signing bonuses.”
Both men turned pale and I would bet that their bonuses weren’t money but other things, possibly to cover up information that neither wanted out in the open.
“No, sir,” they both said.
“Good. Now make it work, I don’t care how you do it.”
My father marched out of the room without so much as a backward glance for me, his own flesh and blood. I had known that his company had invested heavily into the symbiote exchange program; that’s how I got into the early round of participants. But to hear him talk so callously about me, to not care how this would affect my life, or give a damn about the lives that had been lost, it was reprehensible.
The early days of the program had such a high fatality rate that no one really knew the actual numbers, though some speculated it was almost eighty percent. The GUP was going to scrap it until my father said they’d had a breakthrough in the procedure: Me. When I’d walked out of the press conference he was using me at, he’d made back his investment with a two hundred percent gain.
“Please, Narrou I…I don’t want to see anymore.”
That growl returned: Tohm-Tohm protecting me as he had since I woke up in the recovery room, metal fused to my back.
Very well, but I have to know these things, it’s important. I’ll put you into a deep sleep.
Everything faded to black around me. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in my old garage at the academy, wearing the grubby coveralls I loved. Cool air filtered in through the open doors and windows, smelling of grass and the ozone of a coming summer storm.
“Hello, Thanh,” said Narrou.
I looked over to see an androgynous person with no hair and orange skin wearing loose flowing pants and a tunic. They smiled at me and my back pulsed. The skin back there wasn’t sore as it rubbed up against the rough fabric of the coverall. This was a dream, sort of, so maybe it wouldn’t. But something was off, I could sense it. I unzipped the coveralls to find myself naked from the waist up and the cool air on way too much of my skin. The metal plating had covered a good portion of my back, which meant that I hadn’t felt the air on my skin there in a very long time.
“Tohm-Tohm…” I reached behind me to touch my back, trying to feel the metal plate but only finding skin.
I stretched more and my fingers ran over what felt like calcified bone.
“What…?”
I ran to the one mirror in the place and turned around.
“Oh my god,” I gasped. “What…what did you do to him?”
“I healed him, and you.”
The metal plate was gone, as was every single patch of dry skin and broken sores. The scars from the burns were still there, but lessened since the rash was gone. Tohm-Tohm was covered in what appeared to be some kind of exoskeleton that was a soft cream, like bone. His tendrils were healed; some seemed shorter than they should have been, but compared to what I’d seen of my back before, they were all present and accounted for. He ran the length of my spine, whereas before, he’d stopped just before my lower back, and there was a faint glow under the exoskeleton. Instead of being beneath my skin, as I’d always thought, he was above it.
“This is how he was always supposed to look,” Narrou explained. “The man who attacked you, patient six-A, cut Tohm-Tohm before he could fully bond with you. In essence, Tohm-Tohm’s growth was stunted and he was not able to help you as fully as he should have. It’s why you had such an adverse reaction to his Xenocor, and why you were in constant pain. The connection was fractured, and therefore causing both of you to experience pain.”
“But like this he’s vulnerable, he could be hurt again.”
“No, the exoskeleton is one of the strongest substances in the universe. But if something does happen, all you need to do is find a larger symbiote host to donate Xenocor, it will heal him.”
“I had no idea that he was suffering, that any of this should be different.”
“Your people did not handle their exchange with the Seahdohn very well,” Narrou’s face turned thunderous. “They were not at all concerned with the symbiotes and the hosts. The things you saw and overheard…it’s atrocious.”
“I still don’t remember it all, not that I want to,” I said quickly. “I think…I think it might be best that I don’t.”
Narrou nodded.
“If that is your choice, I will honor it. Tohm-Tohm asked to know and so I unlocked his memories.”
“I won’t share them if you don’t want me to, ” he said.
I gasped, then laughed as tears glided down my cheeks.
“I can hear you like you’re standing right here. But I don’t see you.”
“Narrou hooked me up with a way to talk to you, but it’s limited.”
“Hooked up…so odd,” Narrou muttered.
“I wanted to know what happened to us,” Tohm-Tohm continued, “and now that I do, I can tell you when you’re ready. But Thanh, now that Narrou fixed my body, things are going to be different, better. That doesn’t mean your pain will be completely gone. You’ll still have some pain in places. My tendrils might be regrown, but the small filaments that help me connect to your nerve endings are gone.”
“That’s okay, some is better than what we had before.”
I could hear the smile in his voice.
“It definitely will be. Now, I gotta rest and Narrou wants to talk. Hear them out.”
“Well that’s not cryptic,” I said, zipping up the coveralls.
I turned and there was Narrou, bam! right in my way, and I jumped back.
“Sorry,” they said with a serene smile. “You need to rest as well, but first, as Tohm-Tohm expressed, we must talk.”
Nerves curdled in my stomach. Jax had said that Narrou would probably be the one to find out about our fake relationship long before anyone else, had that happened? Was Narrou angry? Were they going to tell everyone?
And when had all this stopped feeling fake?
The realization hit me like a ten-ton bomb and I had to start pacing to get the shock out.
“Are you alright?” Narrou asked with an arched eyebrow. “There’s truly no need for distress.”
“No, no, I’m just,” I cleared my throat, “just fine.”
Narrou hummed in disbelief but didn’t press. I was glad because how did I explain that I was freaking out because I was starting to feel comfortable with Jax.
No, it’s more than that. I’m starting to feel…attracted to…wanting him. I guess it’s not surprising, considering how good he is with his hands. But for fuck’s sake, did it have to be Jax? I mean…okay sure, he was there for me the other night, and he has been…well nice. But there’s the matter of him causing the accident and then conveniently forgetting about it and how the hell do I just let that go? How can I want him to fuck my brains out when I also have hated his guts for years and…
I realized that Narrou hadn’t said anything in a while and I turned around slowly. They were standing there, arms folded and a thoughtful expression on their long face.
“Are you aware that you were speaking out loud just now?” they asked.
A sharp, nervous chuckle flew from my mouth.
“I was?”
“Indeed. But that’s alright, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Tohm-Tohm shared some of your history. I needed to know how you were injured and he mentioned that you believe Jax caused the shuttle crash.”
I swallowed and fidgeted with the rough fabric of the coveralls.
“It’s true,” I said. “He did.”
“He did not.”
“With all due respect, I know you love him, but he did. I know he did.”
“You don’t.”
I opened my mouth to retort that I really did when Narrou cut me off with a thunderous expression.
“You never saw him actually damage the ship, did you?”
“No, but no one would’ve known what system to sabotage unless they’d worked on that engine. Jax and I were the only two. And he was at the garage that day.”
“What did you see then?”
“I saw him getting thrown out. He was irate, he kept trying to talk to me when my…my father told me…”
Suddenly a piece of that day that had never quite made sense to me started to rattle in my brain.
“My father told me that he and my brother had found Jax in the garage,” I said, my mouth dry. “My brother smelled like the experimental lubricant I was using for the engine and my father explained that he’d fixed what Jax had broken but I…I never could check that because my father had sent the shuttle to the launch pad.”
“Early, right?”
I nodded.
That day was a bit hazy but that particular moment had been something I’d gone over and over. Jax and I had fought over our class credit. I said I should get the score for the design, not him, but he complained that he’d only get graded for the construction and that wasn’t fair. I’d thought that he sabotaged it to get back at me so neither of us got the grade we wanted. But after all this time, did I still believe that he was that shallow and vindictive?
And when he was being dragged away, he tried to tell me something when the guards had punched him in the gut…what if he had seen something…something that my brother had missed?
“All I ask,” Narrou said, “is that after you are out of the healing pod, you hear him out.”
“I will,” I said, “it’s a long overdue conversation.”
And then something they’d just said struck me as odd.
“What do you mean, healing pod?”
“Oh, you are in an opening inside of my regeneration systems. My bodily fluid is healing you and —”
“That’s enough,” I said, feeling a little queasy. “I don’t need to know more.”
“As you wish. Sleep now. You’ll be awake soon, and then there will be much to do.”
The garage faded, and me with it, my mind floating in a warm darkness that was on the edge of my consciousness before I wasn’t aware of anything at all.