Chapter Six
Gemma was helped onto a stiff stretcher by two round, polished, white medical robots, who immediately began their assessment of her injuries. Every poke and prod of their thick, metal fingers made Gemma want to rip out their innards.
Not that she could. There wasn’t a single groove or screw hole on the robots’ entire frames.
Gemma didn’t know much about mechanics, but the craftsmanship of the AI technology in Zion was incredible.
The robotic guards that roamed Perileos were large and bulky; these were slim and sleek with circles of blue ultralights for eyes.
They also spoke directly through Gemma’s biochip, unlike the robots in Perileos that yelled from speakers in their horrendous faces.
“You appear to have broken your right ulna,” one of the Zion-bots said. “And your fifth vertebrochondral rib on your right has been fractured.”
“You also have sprained your left knee and torn through the dermis on your forehead,” the other said.
The first robot handed Gemma a plastic cup full of yellow liquid that resembled urine way too closely. “Please drink this.”
Gemma balked. “What is it?”
“Nanobots that have been designed to stimulate the immune response and bone and cellular growth.”
Her nose scrunched. Of course they are.
The thought of little nanobots running through her body was skeevy, but she was in a terrible amount of pain and needed to be able to continue through her Trials.
She grabbed the plastic cup, tipped her head back, and chugged the foul liquid as fast as she could. The nanobots tickled her throat like living bubbles. She pushed the back of her hand against her mouth when she’d finished, stifling a gag.
“Please lift your broken arm,” the robot said.
Gemma grimaced as she obeyed but shouted when the Zion bot began to wrap her arm in strips of fabric.
“Spidersilk,” it explained. “It will serve as a cast until your arm has been repaired. You may remove it in twelve hours.”
“This is for your pain.” The other robot stabbed Gemma in her thigh with a syringe without warning.
Gemma yelped. “Hey!”
“Thank you for your time. Goodbye.” The two robots rolled away silently.
She raised an eyebrow. Okay, then.
Gemma climbed off the stretcher and winced when her feet touched the floor. Every part of her body ached like she’d been hit by a tram. There was no way she’d be feeling better in twelve hours.
Slowly, she worked her way back to the dormitory, praising Zion’s medical robots for the pain relief when it started to kick in.
When Gemma made it back to the dormitory, most of her fellow contestants looked as bad as she did.
Many wore spidersilk casts, and some were in actual wheeled chairs.
A few had bandages around their heads and lay on bottom bunks with braces up their backs.
Supper had even been served via metal tins right in the center of the room, given that so many were literally unable to get to the dining hall.
Gemma scowled. What an atrocious test to put contestants through. She wouldn’t be surprised if a dangerous obstacle course was just another way to lower the population on Reva.
She scanned the room for Imara. Gemma had only partnered with her for a day, but she was the only friend Gemma had in this place—well, ally at least. Gemma wouldn’t go as far as to call her a friend.
Weren’t you saying only yesterday how you didn’t want any friends?
“Somehow, I knew you’d make it,” Imara said, looking up at Gemma through semi-closed eyes.
“Somehow, I’m not surprised you look like you didn’t even participate,” Gemma teased.
Imara half-grinned, putting an arm over her eyes. “Okay, leave me alone. All the drama gave me a headache.”
Gemma shook her head, patting Imara’s leg before limping toward the bed in which the pink-haired guy lay, sleeping. If it weren’t for him, she would be gone, and avenging Nadine’s death would never happen. Forcing the government to see the suffering on Reva would fall short.
He didn’t even know the depth of what he’d accomplished by keeping her in the game. He’d not only saved her life—he’d saved her mission.
Unsurprisingly, he too had managed to get through unscathed. Gemma gently smacked his foot, and he popped one eye open.
“You look like crap,” he said, snapping his eyelid closed.
“Gee, thanks.”
He smirked, his eyes still closed.
“Wake up. I want to talk to you.”
With a dramatic sigh, he ran his hand over his buzzed, pink hair and stared at her, annoyance lining every contour of his face.
“Why did you help me?” Gemma asked, ignoring how much he obviously didn’t want to talk to her.
“What? No ‘thank you?’ ”
She blanched. “You—that’s not—I was going to say thank you!” A cocky smile crept up his cheeks, and she glared at him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He leaned back against the wall, elbows bent and hands behind his head, looking at her like she was a complete waste of his time.
“You know what?” Gemma scowled at him. “Never mind.” She was halfway through her slow spin—thanks to her bad knee—when he finally spoke.
“Couldn’t let you go home yet, now could I?” Gemma glanced over her shoulder, and he shrugged. “You can pay me back later.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Well, thank you.”
“Anytime, amiga,” he replied with a wink.
She rolled her eyes and continued her slow trek to the locker room.
After letting the hot water massage her aching muscles in the shower, Gemma slipped into her white nightshirt and black shorts, careful not to aggravate her other injuries. She worked a brush through her knotted, dark brown hair until she spied herself in the mirror.
Her blue eyes widened, and her mouth gaped—the gash in her forehead was gone.
The nanobots really did work, after all. Maybe she would feel completely better by tomorrow’s test.
Gemma limped back into the dormitory, her nostrils flaring at the sight of all the severely injured contestants. So many more had returned since she’d left to shower, nearly all of them with a severe injury.
Rami deserved what was coming to him.
She closed in on the bunked bed she shared with Christian—and froze. How in the blazes am I going to climb the ladder with a broken arm and a sprained knee?
Christian was already fast asleep on the bottom bunk; she wasn’t going to ask him to move. She barely knew the guy, and he hadn’t exactly been warm and welcoming when she met him yesterday.
Gemma sighed. If she could reach her pillow and blanket and somehow yank them off her bed, she’d just sleep on the cold, metal floor.
Grabbing her blanket was easy. A simple grasp of the back corner, and it pulled easily off the frame. But the pillow . . .
She took a deep breath, bent her bad knee to step up a rung, screaming behind clenched teeth. She pressed her weight onto her foot—and shrieked at the pain when her leg buckled.
Gemma’s arms flailed as she tried to keep from falling—she whacked her broken arm against the bed frame, toppling sideways with a gasp; her vision darkened.
Strong hands grabbed her waist before she could hit the floor. “For stars’ sake, Gemma,” Christian scolded. “You could’ve asked me to switch with you.”
She held tight to his arm until the spots in her vision cleared. “I wasn’t going to wake you up.” She released the grip on his arm, and he removed his hands from her waist.
“Hate to point it out to you,” he said, “but that plan didn’t go very well.”
Gemma glared into the most vibrant hazel-green eyes she’d ever seen, and her resolve to snap at him evaporated. His light brown hair was a tousled mess, yet it somehow suited him. And that playful grin . . .
She shook her head free of its train of thought.
“Sorry,” she said at last, fidgeting with the edge of her spidersilk cast.
“Don’t apologize,” Christian replied, his tone of voice light. “If you hadn’t woken me, I wouldn’t have been about to offer you my bed when you tumbled off the ladder.”
Gemma grimaced. Twice in the past twelve hours, she’d had to be rescued. Pathetic.
“Well, thank you for, y’know.” She gestured at the floor, where she would’ve ended up had Christian not caught her.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled, the corners of his handsome eyes crinkling.
Gemma looked away, her chest fluttering a little. Blast, he was handsome. I should’ve picked a bunkmate with oily hair or rotten breath.
“You look pretty banged up. You all right?” Christian asked.
“No, but I will be. Got tiny, little robots inside me.”
He raised an eyebrow, his expression turning into one of amusement.
“That’s—oh, that is so not what I meant.” Gemma’s cheeks were on fire. She flapped her hand, motioning for him to move out of her way. “Would you just take the top bunk, please?”
Christian was grinning from ear to ear. “You got it, Proctor.”
She growled to herself. Two days in, and already two people had paid attention to her. Not a good start, Gemma.
She climbed into Christian’s bed as he ascended the ladder. She flopped her good arm over her eyes. Getting through the Trials and fulfilling her mission was going to be a lot harder than she had thought.