Mindless

Chapter Sixteen - 046

"You scared me, 022. Really badly."

"S-scared... I k-know that on-ne..." She struggles to get the words out. "Shhh," I tell her. "Don't strain yourself."

Wrong thing. She tries harder to talk.

"W-hat ha-app-pen-ned...?"

"Kay started throwing science in my face, I don't know."

She struggles, as if searching for a response, then passes out again. She's been awake and asleep for the past hour while Kay pops in and out of the room. She doesn't seem as concerned as I am. Everythign settles into a sort of calm, unlike when I brought 022 in and Kay was all panicked.

That calm lasts all the way until 022 starts freezing.

"Kay!" I call out, alarmed. My panic grows as 022's lips slowly turn blue, then the tips of her fingers.

Ice spirals from the corners of her eyes.

"KAY!" I scream. "WHAT IS GOING ON!?"

She hurriedly runs into the room, takes one look at 022, and utters about fifty words that I don't know and don't ned to. "She shouldn't be-- this isn't-- no!"

"Kay, what in the stars is going on!?"

Alarms beep at me from the moniters next to 022's bed. The lights seem too bright. And I can't get answers out of Kay.

Then all the alarms stop at once.

022's ice creeps up everything attached to her to moniter her vitals.

Kay screams Shadow! And a girl materializes out of thin air. I jump backwards, narrowly missing a table covered in medical supplies.

"Shadow, she triggered a nerve and... just, get her to the testing room and Stars, tell Yuli. Hurry."

Shadow grabs 022's arm and before I can protest, poofs away, taking 022 with her.

"What. In. The. Stars."

Kay gets this look on her face and I just explode. "What in the stars was that!? What do you think you're going to tell me now!? Freaking shadow-people start jumping out of the walls as 022 ices over, and you won't tell me anything? What in the stars!?"

All I can see is anger, pure rage. I swing a punch at her. She narrowly ducks, catching my hand in hers.

"046, listen to me. Shadow is one of the best people we've got. 022 is going ot be fine. All that happened is that we need to bump up her surgical date and clear her weeks' calender. Ok?"

"Surgery?"

The look.

"You all need surgery. It's not particularly dangerous but you all need a week in rehab afterward. It's for..." She pauses, unsure. "Er, I guess I'll tell Yuli about this. She might not want you to know. She was planning on briefing you later on."

I start to speak but 008 slams through the door, the panel on the outside of it making strange beeping sounds before sputtering out alltogether. "Where is 022," she asks, her voice dangerous. "So help me, if you've harmed her we are taking a shuttle and--"

"008, relax. She's fine," Kay says. Her tone matches that of every doctor in the moonbases-- cool, removed. It startles me.

"She's going to have surgery!" I blurt out, unable to stop myself. I just-- I can't. I can't trust these people, not with 022. Not if my trust puts her in danger.

008's silver eyes glimmer, appreaing red because of the lights on all the vital moniters. "What kind of surgery?' She asks. I step backwards. I saw what she did to that general-- and he was one of moonBase 001's elite forces.

"Brain surgery," Kay replies. And my reply is instant, no thought goes into it at all. brain surgery is dangerous when a patient is ready for it-- Kay lied. And 022 is definitley not ready for it. But if she's doing it, I'm doing it. That's final.

"Do me with her."

"No."

008 stares at us for a minute more, seething at Kay but all under a placid mask, a careful mask that I'm getting better and better at seeing through each and every day. Then she laeves.

"If she is doing it, I'm doing it. You said that--"

"I said no."

I fight with her, using words in a lethal way I hadn't known possible. She fights back harder.

I try something new. What am I getting myself into?

"Kay, please. I can't-- I can't let her do something that I don't know will work. I can't endanger 022. Please. I know you understand. What would you do if you had just only gotten here and were expected to let people you parley know cut into the mind of sometone you-- you.."

Something flashes across her face, something that I don't know even now.

"You are going to get me into a lot of trouble."

"But...?"

"I'll do it. You best be in the surgery wing, four corridors straight two left one down from the dorms at 05:00 hours tomorrow, though, or so help me I willgo through with this surgery without you and there won't be a damned thing you can do about it."

"Understood."

I'm getting a brain surgery tomorrow.