Aga stepped in front of him, his arms held wide. “Peace, Jack! We are not trying to take you away.” He spoke in low, soothing tones. They would not pacify me!
I crouched on all fours, lips skinned back from fangs, and growled at him. My heart raced, pumping the blood through my veins in a roaring river to my bellowing lungs, pushing my breath out of me in rapid pants. Sweat coated my sides, and I wanted to kill them. Rend their flesh from their bones. My mate! They trapped him! They were trying to take me from him. I stalked towards them, the green one held his ground, but I could smell his fear. The winged male behind him stank of it. I would kill them and take my mate from this place.
The green male bared his teeth at me, holding my gaze, before his face contorted in pain and he bent over at the waist, coughing.
The coughing cut through the fog of my panic. I whined, confused, and approached him. I stuck my muzzle into his face and whined again.
“Get your wet nose out of my face, Rijitera,” Aga said, but his touch on my head was gentle and he didn’t push me away. When he fell, I was ready. I caught him under his arm and stood, bringing him fully to his feet. Rema grabbed his other arm, slinging it over his shoulder, and together we got him to a pod.
“You will not eat Rema while I’m in here, will you?” he asked, his voice a rough rasp.
I shifted back and gave him a sad smile. “No. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Aga. I didn’t mean it.”
He grunted, laying back and closing his eyes. “Don’t you worry about it, Rijitera. Don’t panic. We’ll be fine. Just need to rest.” His voice tapered off as he fell unconscious.
I clenched my teeth, tilting my head back to draw in a steading breath before opening them to look at Rema’s pale face. “Let’s get you in a pod before you collapse too, my friend.”
That Rema could walk on his own to his pod, and both Aga and Ohem had collapsed, spoke of a much hardier constitution than I had realized.
When he laid back into the white apparatus, I leaned over him, my throat raw. “I’m sorry, Rema. You’re my friend and I’m sorry I snapped at you. Please get better.” A tear hit his cheek, and I wiped at my face.
Rema gave me a sad smile, reaching up to brush a tear away. “It’s okay, Jack. Remember that you’re not alone. Ghix is just a link away. I would want no one else to watch over the lot of us but you. It’s going to be okay. We are going to get better. Just hold on.” He dropped his hand, and the mist sprayed over his face. I watched over him until I was sure he was asleep and then went to stand vigil over Ohem.
“Is he going to live, Anu?” I whispered.
He has a seventy-eight percent recovery rate.
The fist around my heart loosened a little. I’d take those odds.
“And the others?”
Most will recover. The one you call Aga has the highest chance of recovery at eighty-four percent. The Neldre is steady at sixty-two percent. The two females are unknown as yet. A DNA splice is changing them. Too many variables to say for sure until the process is further along.
I looked across the room at Patty and Callie’s pods. “Forget variables. What do you think will happen?”
Anu hesitated, and the fist gave my heart another painful squeeze.
I think… that they will survive. I used Rijiteran DNA in their modifications. It will defeat the virus as it did before. With your antibodies, they will live.
My shoulders slumped in relief and I leaned my forehead against Ohem’s glass covering.
I sat like this for over an hour, letting the adrenaline and fear work out of my system, leaving me exhausted. A bed had materialized out of the floor thirty minutes ago, the same silver metal as everything else in the Archive. It had a soft mattress added to it and a thin sheet. I wanted to sleep but couldn’t bring myself to leave Ohem. I wished Anu had some sleepy time drugs to help with the anxiety. The thought of drugs tickled a reminder that I had wanted to ask Anu a question earlier, before the shit hit the fan.
“You said only something cooked up by our dead scientist could knock out a Rijitera?”
That is correct. Your own kind drugged you. Judging by the human woman, their race isn’t up to the technological standards of even the Unity. They are too far behind to have accomplished the task, and nothing the Unity has could do it. So, the logical answer is one of your people rendered you unconscious.
I’d been in a jail cell. Waiting formy mom. Then woke up on a Vrax ship.
Holy. Shit.
My mom drugged me. It was the only thing that made sense!
The 64,000 dollar question was,why?
