Chapter 14

The torment of nights alone faded for a little while. Maybe the intensity created some kind of overload and short-circuited my system, Anita thought. It was a relief. Her schedule settled into a predictable routine again. No more excessive walks on the surface, though the occasional half hour or so still helped fight the cabin fever. Most of her time went into the suit. The fabric and electronic part of the construction was mostly done, and she had moved on to the wings. Those were marginally easier to construct, but harder to find a place to spread them out once they had grown to a certain size. Half of the entry room was now dedicated to the wings, parts spread across the floor in various stages of construction.

The changes in her body had mostly stopped, reaching some kind of equilibrium as she maintained her exercise routines. She still wasn’t fond of the new body, but she was beginning to make her peace with it. The additional strength was nice, as was the increased endurance when she was running or just walking.

The next two supply runs went without incident. Sergei stayed for a few hours to eat a meal and rest for a while, and Anita felt no flames in her body. She was grateful to be able to sit and chat with her teammate without distraction. It was interesting to hear about the places he’d been sent, the ways he’d found to escape the notice of Perses when he needed to, and the things he was concerned about for the future. When she was putting away the supplies he’d brought, she found a tube of tightly packed pills, with a note taped to the outside. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about these earlier. I hope it hasn’t been too bad. Take one in the morning and one at night; you can take one more if you really need it, but I wouldn’t go over that. I can’t promise it will make your body calm down completely, but it should help.” Jay’s scrawl was legible, and Anita gratefully popped the top off the tube and swallowed a pill. It would probably take a few days for the effects to become noticeable, but it would happen soon enough. She could wait, if there was even the smallest possibility of putting out the fires that threatened to burst out in her skin at any time.

Alice brought the next set of supplies, and to Anita’s delight, was able to stay for a full day before leaving again. She abandoned her usual routine and spent the time listening to Alice’s stories from Kerguelen and her field work. Perses’ grip was definitely tightening, but they seemed to have reached an impasse in their search for Anita and the suit designs. None of them could afford to relax their guards, but it seemed that their plan was working. The two women talked into the night and into the next morning. Anita showed Alice the work on the suit and the wings. Alice was so excited at the progress that she let out a joyful shout and jumped around the room.

The two visits cheered Anita up considerably. Two days after Alice left, Anita woke up to find a video message from Jay on the computer. “Hey, Anita. I’m sorry for the long time between messages. I’ll explain more when everything is safe, I promise. You deserve an explanation, but I need you to trust me for now, ok? Ok, good. I’m going to assume you said yes, because I am damn trustworthy. I hope the pills I sent are helping. That can’t be fun, and I’ll do whatever I can to help mitigate that. You’re in a pretty terrible position, and there’s only so much we can do. Things are still tightening up here, but I think we’re all ok for now. As long as we don’t do anything stupid and they don’t have tech we don’t know about. Which, honestly, is possible, but it’s a hypothetical that we can’t really worry about now. The scouts are still doing amazing work, which of course they are, they’re amazing people. Keeping this secret has been pretty tough on them, too, but they’re doing their best not to show it. And I think a few of them get a kick out of the adrenaline rush.” They paused for a moment, looking away from the screen as if trying to decide what to say. “It’s getting harder to know who to trust. There are a lot of new people around, and some people left without telling anyone. It’s nothing like what you’re dealing with, of course, but it’s hard not to feel a little cut off from everyone, you know?”

Anita felt a prickle of irritation. Of course it was nothing like what she was going through. Jay could actually speak and communicate with others normally. They didn’t have to watch themselves every moment to make sure no vocalizations slipped out. They could go have lunch with a friend or colleague, even if there were fewer trustworthy ones around. They could choose from the whole cafe menu instead of a few items packed in boxes. They could sleep with anyone they wanted; Jay probably knew nothing about the fires that she had gone through, the nights of torture. No, it wasn’t the same at all.

The message continued. “It’s pretty quiet around Kerguelen these days, at least among the other researchers. The Perses people can be annoyingly loud, but the rest of us are watching our steps, trying not to attract too much attention without looking like we’re trying to avoid anyone. It’s tricky.” They looked away again. “There is so much more I want to tell you, Anita. If I did, I could endanger both of us, waste all of our effort. I’m not going to do that, and I know you’d be furious if I did. I hope you can forgive me later. I’ll send more when I can.” Jay smiled, but it was the most uncertain smile Anita had ever seen on her friend’s face. The screen went black, and Anita was left feeling a little deflated. She’d been dying to hear from Jay for weeks, but this wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted funny stories from Kerguelen, tales of Perses agents outsmarted, of good science getting done. This mysterious “trust me now, I’ll tell you later” stuff? That was both unsettling and unsatisfying.

For the first time in weeks, the fires returned that night and Anita slept only a few hours.