Jace didn’t panic until his face sank underneath the gel’s surface. But then one of the coils from the pool was coming up and covering his mouth and nose. The gel was blasted out and air started to flow.
Not going to drown, that’s good! He mentally laughed. It was slightly hysterical.
And that was when he felt something stirring all along his spine from the base of his skull, every two inches, to the very bottom of his spine. He thought of the whirring barbs he had witnessed before just as he saw shreds of his clothes float upwards past him.
Will there be pain? Jace asked. He was already hurting. He was always hurting, but to have those barbs drilling into him and him unable to move...
No, it will inject a numbing agent, Gehenna said. I’ve explained pain to it. And it’s been watching and observing the humans.
That’s good--ah!
Needles sank into his back. Heat spread throughout the skin around those pricks then he felt nothing at all. Crimson swirled upwards through the blue.
Blood. My blood. But I don’t feel anything at all, he murmured. It’s drilling into me.
His eyelids were getting heavy. The liquid was not bothering his eyes. But he wanted to close them. He wanted to sleep. He let his eyelids fall shut. Darkness again reached for him.
Yes, Jace, you should sleep, Gehenna murmured, sounding sleepy herself. And when you wake, everything will be different. Everything will be as it should be.
Truth
Khoth stared at Jace’s now naked figure floating beneath the blue surface of the liquid in the tank. His clothes had broken apart and the remnants of them had been efficiently vacuumed away leaving the liquid a pure, electric blue once more.
When he’d first seen Jace’s body unclothed it had been quite thin with little musculature and very little fat on it. He looked frail and, also, like he had suffered for years. Khoth was amazed at how much strength of will had been in that fragile package. Though as he watched Jace’s form now, it appeared that it was changing.
Is he gaining muscle? Yes, it appears so.
Tubes were attached all along Jace’s spine, at his wrists, into biceps, two in his stomach, and also four in the thighs and calves. The liquid being pumped into Jace appeared to be a mixture of many colors and he could not identify what it was. The veins and arteries under Jace’s skin showed a dark blue perhaps in response. Would that color remain or would it disappear after this process was complete?
I hope it does not change his eyes. He has such beautiful eyes.
Khoth shifted from foot to foot as he continued to study Jace’s changing form. Those beautiful eyes were closed and there were no signs of distress on his face. If there had been, Khoth might have been inclined to step into the tank and take Jace out of it. But all appeared to be going to plan at the moment. Though whose plan was now less clear.
Jace’s arms were stretched out to his sides. His fingers twitched occasionally and Khoth wondered if he were dreaming or if it was just an autonomic response.
I hope your Xi and Xa are in alignment, Jace, and you experience only peace.
He could almost imagine Thammah making a scoffing noise at him and that expressive lifting of one of her eyebrows at this. He had nearly let Jace die for the greater good, had he not? How could he now act as if he were Jace’s protector? She would have had a point.
He wondered where she was. He almost missed her acerbic wit. She was too smart to be caught by the humans. He guessed that she was hiding out in some part of the now-active Osiris. If Jace survived this connection to Gehenna the humans would likely forgive their trespasses. His mind flashed back to Colonel Diane Parker’s face just before the doors to the Core had shut.
She will never forgive, I think. Nor forget.
He had taken her child. A mother was fierce in the protection of her young. And there was something about Jace that made people want to protect him, even as he was strong-willed.
Has my admiration for Jace caused me to break the Rule of Duuskukeh again? Thammah would say yes, but then she would add that it was a good thing.
Khoth’s lips flattened. He should be upset with himself that he had likely lost this technology to humanity forever. But he couldn’t be. Truth was the most important thing to embrace about oneself. And his truth was that he didn’t regret what he’d done. He was completely pleased that Jace was going to live.
Maybe I deserve to be exiled. Maybe that is the safest thing for the Alliance.
Yet his mind voice was mild and he imagined Daesah saying in response, “There is no shame in caring for the individual, Khoth. After all, what is the whole, but made of ones? Your empathy is your strength. Not a weakness.”
He reached inside of his exo-suit and felt the spine of her last journal under his fingertips. He had stuffed it into the interior pocket before going to Jace’s hospital room. He had a moment to read it now before Jace woke up. He should do so.
He will wake up. He will be repaired and… improved in some ways. Narrowing his eyes, Khoth again confirmed that the young man’s body was changing. He will still be lithe but much smaller than me, yet a powerful package.
His eyes drifted to Jace’s genitals. It was natural to be interested in another species’ reproductive organs. It was not something he felt particular embarrassment about. But he had to admit that there was something easier about quenching this interest when Jace was unaware of it.
