“That’s my cue,” Rys noted. “I’ll see you soon, Sara. And don’t worry about the eye, all right? This isn’t the first time something
unplanned
has happened to it.”
He beat a hasty retreat before she really had a chance to respond.
Anne had somehow managed to change, brush out her hair, and add a touch of makeup in the ten minutes she had been gone. Women could be incredibly fast when it was necessary. The clothes were understated, but extremely flattering on her, highlighting her waist-length blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. Rys wished both of his eyes were on line and working at optimum efficiency, so he could fully enjoy the sight standing in front of him.
She took in his black and white uniform with raised eyebrows. “Do I take it from your attire that I finally get the full story, then?”
“I don’t see why not,” he responded as he slid into the passenger seat next to her. “You’ve obviously figured out what I am, I don’t see any point in hiding.”
“Well, I knew that you were military.” She shifted the car quickly into drive and started down the street, setting a pace that was more than marginally faster than the speed limit. “And taking your age into account, you could only be Special Forces. I understood that the only teenagers involved in the war were the Special Forces soldiers.”
“Affirmative,” he confirmed simply, stating a fact without comment.
“I’m actually disappointed in myself for not putting that together sooner.” She shook her head, an exasperated sigh slipping from her mouth. “You’re much too polite to be an average teenager.”
That statement tickled his sense of humor, and set him off laughing. “They drill manners into you at the academy; it is the foundation of discipline.”
“I believe it. So, you may start from the beginning, and we won’t be leaving anything out. Why did you sign up?”
He relaxed back into the seat, gearing up for a long debriefing, and stared blindly into space as he visualized his first response. “About ten years ago, they approached all of the war orphans with the option of attending the academy. It was a way to feel like we were part of something more important than ourselves, so quite a few of us said yes. I entered the academy when I was eight.”
“Eight?” she repeated incredulously, the shock on her face was crystal clear. “Isn’t that a little young?”
“Of course it was young, but Fourth was desperate. Nova outnumbered us a hundred to one. We needed to utilize all of our resources, including our population, to the best advantage possible. They had to train us to be faster, smarter, stronger, and more capable than our enemy. Each one of us would be worth more than any of their soldiers, by a factor of ten. It was the only prayer we had of coming out of that conflagration alive.”
“Nova has much to answer for.” Anne’s voice was even but razor edged, as her hands tightened on the steering wheel, turning her knuckles a deathly white.
Rys didn’t trust himself to speak just then; it was too close to the surface for him. He took a slow, deep breath, shoving all of the anger and pain welling up inside his chest back down into that special place he reserved for things he couldn’t do anything about. When he was more confident of his control, he continued, “Anyway, I graduated from the academy at fourteen. They assigned me to a Special Forces unit to garner experience and learn how to effectively transit theory into practice. It was on my second mission that I lost the eye.”
“Can you talk about how it happened?”
He shrugged apologetically, and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. That mission is still classified.”
“I understand, never mind, then. How do you get along with the artificial eye? Was it a big adjustment for you?”
“It was difficult at first, but most of the time I love it. The ocular implant has more functions than just allowing me to see. I can also zoom in on things I want to get a closer look at, or switch to infrared so I have better vision in the dark.” He poked at it ruefully with a finger. “The only real draw backs are times like these, when it breaks down. It is not as durable as I would like, and that can be a real problem in a combat situation. I believe that this is the first loss on a tennis court!”
“Maybe Doctor Barnes has gotten tired of rebuilding your eye, and this new one is constructed with you in mind,” she encouraged in a teasing tone.
Rys was gratified that she felt comfortable enough with his impairment to actually tease him about it.
Maybe she really doesn’t mind the eye after all.
“I really hope so. If I never hear another lecture from Doc on my uncanny ability to discover new ways to get him into the record books, it will be too soon.”
***
“Rys, I’m going to permanently attach an impenetrable helmet to your skull if you don’t stop destroying my eyes!”
Rys winced at this initial greeting from Doc. “Nice to see you too, Doc. How have you been?”
Doc grinned back at him, clearly fond of his favorite mill stone. He was wearing his traditional white lab coat and comfortable fatigues. Rys thought of it as Doc’s “uniform.” His hair was as pale and as curly as ever, if a little less abundant than Rys remembered. Doc staunchly maintained that he didn’t have a receding hairline; he just had
large wandering cowlicks.
“You look a sight better than the last time I saw you, boy. And who might this pretty young woman be?”
Rys slid sideways to make the introductions. “Doc, this is Anne Dorian. Anne, Doctor Allen Barnes.”
Anne stepped forward without hesitation and shook hands with the doctor. “I am very relieved to make your acquaintance, Doctor Barnes,” she said with such sincerity and charm that even Doc, as cynical and crusty as he tended to be, melted like an ice bulkhead under a plasma arc. “Rys has been telling me about this incredible ocular implant that you created for him. It’s absolutely amazing — I thought things like this only existed in the realm of science fiction.”
Doc actually
blushed
at her generous accolades. Rys would have confidently gambled a month’s pay, five minutes ago, that blushing was a medical impossibility for his staid doctor.
“Well, I admit it was initially developed as much from desperation as inspiration. In fact, all the upgrades to it have occurred pretty much the same way. I was just trying to keep our soldiers alive, intact, and functioning at peak performance. Their field requirements have really kept me hopping, you can’t baby a piece of hardware when your life, and lives of your team is on the line.”
Rys looked at her out of the side of his left eye.
Amazing! She just wrapped him around her little finger in less than five seconds.
He was going to have to study her technique; it could have some practical applications on covert missions!
Wait.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be amazed by this phenomenon; she managed the same thing with me, after all.
“Well, Rys, sit down in that chair and let me have a look at what you’ve left me this time.”
Rys blinked. Doc usually proceeded to lecture him for a good ten minutes, as a preamble, before taking a look at anything. Was he going easy on him because of Anne? Bringing her along was proving to be an excellent strategy. Whatever the case, he wasn’t about to question his good fortune. Rys promptly took the chair he was pointed to and automatically tilted his head at the proper angle, so that Doc could have easier access.
Doc produced a digital magnifying scope from his coat pocket, and spent several minutes examining Rys’s damaged eye in painstaking detail. He made those characteristic impromptu grunts now and again that always got on Rys’s nerves. “Yep, you definitely busted this one up good. The only use this pitiful pile of slag will have in the future will be for salvaged parts for your next catastrophe.”
Rys was afraid that might be the case, and gave a small embarrassed grin. “Yes, sir. Is my new implant standing by, and ready to be switched out? I think we can eclipse our old record, if it is on line and positioned for immediate insertion!”
“Well, your luck is holding, I do have one ready. However the new eye has some upgrades, which will require a little more time to connect and align. Cheer up; maybe we can go for the title next time!”
Upgrades were usually the rule; Doc couldn’t help but tinker with his masterpiece. He always had a new vision of perfection, somewhere just around the next corner. Rys groaned, as his day just got significantly longer.
“Rys don’t give me that. They’re good, solid, useful upgrades. You’ll like them, I promise!”
“I probably will,” Rys agreed with a resigned sigh. “But it usually takes me a few days to get used to them, along with a couple of bottles of meds for my headaches.” While he was trying to get accustomed to all the new features, he would inadvertently activate unfamiliar functions. It was annoying to be taking a shower, and then suddenly zoom in on the bottle of shampoo for no apparent reason.
“Is it difficult adjusting to upgrades?” Anne asked showing obvious concern, thinking about what could happen.
“No, just inconvenient and irritating,” he assured her. “I sometimes activate the different features without meaning to, and then I have to scramble to figure out what I did, and undo the command.”
She frowned. “Maybe you need to take a few days off from school, until you’ve mastered it.”
“I probably need to do that anyway,” he observed. “Otherwise I’m going to have to come up with an explanation for an eye that is injured one day, and fine the next.”
“Good point,” she concurred. “Doctor Barnes, how long do you think this will take?”
“Oh, about a half-hour I expect.” Doc finally broke eye contact with the wreckage in front of him, and glanced away from Rys to answer her. “The connection ports seem to be intact; it’s just the eye itself that was damaged. I think I can just retrieve this one from its socket and drop the new one back in. If things don’t mesh up as seamlessly as I project, it will take considerably longer of course.”
She nodded in understanding. “Do you need me to step outside, or may I stay and watch?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave,” Doc replied in an apologetic tone. “The technology behind all of this is still considered sensitive information, and on a need to know basis only.”
Rys cleared his throat. “Actually, she can stay if she would like to.”
Doc gave him a sharp look. “And why is that?”
“She’s Vice-Minister Dorian’s daughter, Doc. She has a Secret Clearance—she has to, in order to be able to share quarters with her father.” Rys had double checked that detail on the ride over here, just to be safe. His cranial chip had pulled the information up easily from the ‘net, without a problem. Hacking into her file had taken a little more time, but he hadn’t been hanging around Gremlin for two years without acquiring a few useful tricks.
Anne stared at him incredulously. “And how would you know that?”
“I read your file.” He gave a very blasé shrug of the shoulders, as if it was standard operating procedure.
She snapped her mouth closed, still looking decidedly perturbed. He was sure he hadn’t heard the last word on that particular subject. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? I can see that I shouldn’t put anything past you, ever. Rest assured that I will be more watchful in the future.”
“Excellent intuition,” Doc nodded firmly, with a sarcastic tone in his voice. “Nothing is sacred to these Special Forces guys. Classifying anything is like painting a targeting on it — they take it as a challenge instead of a deterrent. I can just about guarantee you that if they want something, they will find a way to get it.”
This amused Rys no end. “Now, Doc, we don’t hack into every folder that’s labeled classified, just the interesting ones! We do have a limited amount of time in our schedules you know.”
Doc shot him a look that clearly
said I don’t believe you.
“Well, Miss Dorian, since you seem to have sufficient clearance, you may stay if you wish. Perhaps he won’t squirm so much if you keep him entertained.”
“I don’t squirm,” Rys objected indignantly.
“Fidget, then.”
“Doc, I have only moved
once
on you, and that was when you did the initial surgical installation. Haven’t I proven myself to be a cooperative and trustworthy patient since then?”
Doc ignored him completely, unwilling to concede the point. “I’m counting on you, Anne.”
She gave a solemn nod, as if the fate of the galaxy rested on her shoulders. “I’ll do my best.”
Rys gave up. They were obviously enjoying themselves, and had formed a spontaneous tag team to outmaneuver him. He might as well let them play; it was plain there was nothing he could do that would deter them. “Doc, where would you like to do this?”
“Lay on the bed there. Anne, if you stand on the left side near the head of the bed, you’ll be safely out of my way,” he instructed cheerfully. “I’ll go fetch my numerous instruments of torture and be right with you.” He favored them with his most evil grin and headed off on his errand.
Rys lay down on the bed, trying to get as comfortable as possible. He was going to be in that position for a while. Anne took up her assigned post on the left side of the bed, standing so that she was easily within his line of sight.
“Just
when
did you read my file?” she asked seriously, firing the first volley of the engagement.
“Today,” he admitted openly, with nothing to hide. “I didn’t even know that you were the Vice-Minister’s daughter until Sara told me. I just hadn’t made that connection. Considering everything that was going on, I thought it was prudent to run a check and make sure you had clearance. That way I would be able to answer your questions truthfully.” When she frowned he added uncertainly, “Should I have asked for your permission first?”
“I would have felt less invaded if you had,” she finally admitted, after a long pause. “I understand why you had to check, and I do appreciate the forethought, so you could legally talk to me about your situation. Next time you have a question that concerns me, would you discuss it with me first?”
He mentally flinched. Ouch, he’d muffed that operation! “Sorry. I promise I will do that next time.”