Kamikaze by Jayel

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Kamikaze, Part 7
by Jayel

Julia says if I really want to be a doctor, I have to learn to keep notes on everything that happens, no matter how insignificant it seems to me at the time. That's why she gave me this audio-journal, so I could get into practice. But how am I supposed to ever record anything interesting if no one ever tells me anything or lets me know what's going on?

Take tonight, for example. I know something bad happened to Magus, and I know it had something to do with Tara, but as soon as I showed up, Dad tried to make me go away. Then when he and Val came back with Tara, all the adults went into one of their little confabs in the old med-tent and sent Uly and me to bed-- like we can sleep with stuff like this going on. Actually, Uly did go to sleep, but I think that's how he finds stuff out. He goes to sleep and the Terrians tell him what's going on in his dreams.

But the Terrians tell me exactly squat, asleep or awake, just like everybody else, and besides, I wasn't sleepy. So I decided to try and find out for myself.

Bess is usually the best place to start when I need information, not because she's a pushover (which she really is), but because she's just about the only one in camp who doesn't treat me like a newborn baby with a learning disability. I knew she was still in the shelter with Magus, because I had seen everybody else come out and go into the med-tent. So once I made sure Uly was good and asleep, that's where I went.

The door was standing open, and I could see Magus on the cot. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like she was sleeping--I guess I knew Julia would have told us if she had died or anything. I started to go on in and talk to Bess, but then I heard Morgan's voice.

"I can't believe, after everything that's happened, that Danziger and the rest of them are just going to let those people, that . . . woman, stay with us," he was saying, hysterical as usual. I crouched down beside the doorway to listen.

"Morgan, honey, keep your voice down," Bess urged. I could see them sitting in front of the fireplace. Bess had her back to the door and was holding both of Morgan's hands, trying to calm him down. "We don't want to wake Magus."

"You're right; I'm sorry," he said more softly. For a second I thought he had seen me, but then he laid his head in Bess' lap. "But I'm upset, I can't help it."

"Of course you're upset; I'm upset, too," she soothed, stroking his forehead. "If what you just told me is true, then maybe Tara shouldn't be allowed to go with us."

"It's true if she was telling the truth, which we have no way of knowing," he pointed out. "What makes them think EVE couldn't make up some plausible story--"

"Morgan, honey, how could EVE possibly get out of the computer and come after us?" she said reasonably. "I don't think Tara is EVE."

"Maybe not," he conceded. "But she's still dangerous-- you should have seen those . . . things on her hands. And her husband nearly broke Danziger's nose when he tried to make her come back to camp."

"Val probably thought John wanted her punished for what she had done to Magus," Bess said. "If someone wanted to hurt me, wouldn't you break his nose?"

"Of course I would," he said quickly. "But you wouldn't fry anybody's brain--"

"Not intentionally," she interrupted. "But remember when I had that energy inside me from the plant? Remember how worried everybody was, how afraid they were of what I might do?"

He looked up at her with what Uly and I privately called "fuzzy eyes," like he wanted to eat her up with a spoon. Too disgusting . . .

"Of course I remember," he said.

"I think we have to give Val and Tara the benefit of the doubt," Bess went on, smiling sweetly down at him. "We need their help."

"If they can really help," he grumbled. "All right, all right . . . I'll try." He reached up and laid his hand on her stomach. "Let's just say I have reason to be overly cautious," he said.

She put her hand over his and squeezed it. "So do I," she said. He reached up and pulled her down to kiss her, and I decided I had seen enough. Believe me, after growing up in a tiny unit with Dad, I know when to snoop and when to walk away.

I figured if Morgan had come out, the meeting in the med-tent must have pretty much broken up, but lots of times Dad would hang around with Julia and Alonzo and Yale to hash things over after Morgan and Wolman and everybody else had gone. I knew from experience that this was when what was really happening would come out.

But when I got to the med-tent, there was no one left but Dad, Julia, Val and Tara. Julia was doing something to a bruise on Val's eye, and Tara (who looked worse than awful herself) was putting a skin-knitter on Dad's nose. "You poor baby," she teased. "Val, I can't believe you got this clear a shot at him."

"It wasn't easy," Val said, wincing as Julia probed his shiner. "Hey, man, I'm sorry."

"Forget about it," Dad said. "I'd have done the same thing."

"And did, apparently," Julia said. "The next time you guys want to pound on each other, give me a little notice, all right?" She turned away from Val and put her hand on Tara's shoulder. "The one I'm really concerned about is you."

"Don't be," Tara said. "It's happened before, like I said-- and you said yourself that my glove readings came up perfectly normal."

"Yes," Julia agreed slowly. "But this glove wasn't designed to detect the kind of activity you described."

"Julia, I'm fine, I promise," Tara insisted. "Val, tell her I'm fine."

"She'll be okay," Val agreed, getting up. "But I'd still check her out if I were you. Come on, Danziger, I'll buy you a drink."

Dad touched his nose like it still hurt. "Don't even joke," he said.

"Who's joking?" Tara said with a laugh. "Hasn't he shown you his stash yet? What do you think is in that locker down by the hot tub?"

"No kidding?" Dad said. "Let's hit it."

"Guys, be careful," Julia warned. "It's been a big night, and we've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

"She's just worried we're gonna get her sweetie schnockered," Val teased. "That Italian pretty boy has drunk stronger men than you and me under many a table in his day."

"They'll be good, Julia," Tara promised.

I faded back into the shadows as Val and Dad came out. My first instinct was to follow Dad--he usually stayed on top of things, and if I got caught snooping, he was more likely to forgive me than anybody else. But I couldn't help wondering what had happened to Tara, and I could tell she and Julia really wanted to talk. So once the guys were gone, I crept back up to my original listening spot.

Tara had taken most of her clothes off, and Julia was examining her with the glove. She looked like she had been badly sunburned, even on the parts that would have been under her clothes. "When I realized Magus was there, I tried to pull everything back in too quickly," Tara was saying. "It'll fade in a day or so."

"What about your cerebellum?" Julia asked. "Is it physically damaged as well?"

"How should I know?" Tara asked. "You're the doctor; you tell me."

"I'm not picking up any significant damage," Julia admitted, passing the glove over her head. "Although there is some old scarring--you say this has happened before."

"A few times," Tara said. "The worst was when I killed Reilly--for the next two weeks I looked like I had fallen asleep on a radiation bed. That's how I was able to pass as a sleep jumper--everybody assumed I had done a tour on the surface."

When she said Reilly, my ears perked up, and I think Julia's did, too. "You can get dressed," Julia said, taking off her glove. "My medical advice is to not make any new VR programs for a day or so."

"I think I can go along with that," Tara agreed. "What about you, Doc?"

"What about me?" Julia said.

"Are you okay? I know how you felt about Reilly . . . when Alonzo told us about what had happened to you, I nearly died." Tara came over to Julia, who was putting her equipment away and wouldn't look up. "I wanted to tell you, Doc," she went on. "But we had decided so long ago never to tell anybody. And Val wanted to just stay here--"

"It's okay," Julia said, turning to her with a smile I was pretty sure was a fake. "I understand, really. I just hope we can figure out a way to use what you can do to help Devon."

Tara seemed to know Julia's smile was a fake, too. "I hope that, too," she said, reaching for her boots. "Hey, you'd better go find those guys before they do get Alonzo started. Otherwise you'll be treating hangovers all day tomorrow."

I knew better than to hang around any longer. Hard experience had taught me I couldn't hide from Julia, and she was obviously about to come out. So I crept away from the med-tent on my knees until I was out of range, then got up and ran the rest of the way back to the tent I was supposed to be sleeping in.

Uly was tossing and turning on his cot and making those weird Terrian noises in his sleep. "Hey, wake up," I said softly, shaking him. "You're having a nightmare; wake up."

"MOM!!" he yelled, sitting bolt upright with his eyes wide open.

"Shhhhh," I told him, shaking him again. "You're okay, it was just a bad dream." I put my arms around him and squeezed him as tight as I could. "Your mom isn't here, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he said, sounding like his old self again. He let me hold him, though, his head kind of drooping on my shoulder. "Thanks."

"Forget about it," I said, giving him one last squeeze. "You want a drink of water?"

He shook his head. "I wish I could forget about it," he said, sitting up cross-legged on the cot.

"What, your mom being gone?" I asked, sitting opposite him.

"No, not that," he said, shaking his head. "My dream."

"Maybe you should tell me about it," I said. "Sometimes when I have a nightmare, it makes me feel better to tell it to Dad. When I hear it out loud, it usually sounds so silly that it isn't scary any more."

"This one isn't silly," he said. "And I don't think it's a nightmare. I think it's real."

"Tell me," I said.

"Okay," he agreed. "I'm always in this cave, and there are lots of Terrians around me--the cave is so big, I can't even see the walls, and it's full of Terrians, squatting down close to the ground like they do. You've seen them--"

"Yeah, I've seen them," I said. "What's so scary about that? I thought you liked the Terrians."

"I do, stupid," he said. "That's not the scary part. The scary part is that we can't move, any of us. It's like we've turned to stone, or like we're frozen, like that old Terrian that got into your dad."

"That is pretty scary," I admitted.

"But that isn't the worst part," he said, sounding like he was about to cry. "The worst part is Mom . . ."

I reached out and took his hand. "What about her?" I said. "Is she frozen, too?"

"I think so--I think she's more frozen than we are," he said. "She's in the center of the cave, and we're all around her--I'm right up next to her, and so is Alonzo--"

"Alonzo is there?"

"Yeah, sometimes, and sometimes he isn't. We're there, looking down at Mom, like we want her to help us, but she isn't moving; she's frozen." He was really crying now, rubbing his tears away on his sleeve. "Then all of sudden we start--I don't know, we start melting--"

"Thawing out?"

"No, disintegrating. It's like we're turning into dust. My fingers are dust, and there's dust inside me, in my chest, so I can't breathe." He took a few big gulps of air like he was showing himself that it wasn't really happening. "All of the Terrians are screaming and turning into this frozen dust, and we all want Mom to save us, but she can't; she's turning into dust, too. I can see her skin going away, and the bones in her face . . . " He hunched over and put his head down on his knees, crying like his heart was broken.

"Hey, don't cry, Uly," I begged him, putting my arms around him again. "It's just a bad dream, I swear. It isn't real."

"It is," he insisted. "I know it is, and Alonzo knows it, too. He's been having the same dream."

"Did he tell you that?" I asked him, suddenly getting really scared. If Uly and Alonzo were both dreaming this, it probably did mean something. "I'm gonna go get Dad."

"No!" he said, looking up. "No, True, please don't." He held out his hand to me. "Just stay with me, okay? I'll be all right if you just stay here for a while."

I thought about it for a minute. Dad was probably going to be back soon anyway. "Scoot over," I said, pulling my blanket off of my cot and crawling in beside him. "I'll tell you something really scary, about the time my dad and Alex got stuck in a wrecked pod at the North Pole."

He snuggled up beside me. "Yeah, right," he said. "Like I haven't heard that story a hundred million thousand times already."

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