NichosDufresne

  Stanley stood over the sink in the bathroom, dizzy. A wet feeling filled his lungs as he coughed into it and a metallic taste clung to his tongue as specks of blood painted the white vanity piece red. He spat out more blood, confident his coughing fit was finally finished.

  It had been a hard thing, holding back the urge to cough during his lessons and when around the others. He’d been doing so well too over the past few days, he mented. He’d almost been caught be Adrian when he’d first arrived but had managed to py it off.

  He couldn’t afford to show weakness to the strangers that held his life in the palm of their hands. If he wanted to survive he needed to prove himself valuable enough not only to keep around but to keep protected as well.

  Raising his head, he studied his pallid complexion in the mirror. It wouldn’t do for him to return in such a state. He reached for the faucet and turned on the water, rinsing out the blood in the sink.

  Once all the traces of his weakness were gone, he turned the water cold and spshed some on his face to cool off his burning body. His dizziness returned in full force and Stanley was forced to y down, spots appearing in his vision. Unable to move, he had no choice but to wait for the feeling to pass.

  The cool floor helped him feel somewhat better, a welcome change from his current state. He remained motionless, unaware of how much time passed. When he felt well enough to stand up the first thing he did was take a long drink of ice-cold water to quench his unreasonable thirst. Gncing at his reflection once more, he noted that he looked even worse than before.

  The others must be getting worried about the amount of time I’m taking, he thought. Reflecting on his current retionship with Adrian, he was forced to amend his statement. If anything, they’re probably gd I’ve been gone for so long. I’m sure they’re more than happy to have the extra time to themselves.

  His thoughts turned to Reya, who by now he’d figured out was in a retionship with Adrian after watching the two of them together. He was still having trouble adapting to the fact that the a’vaare were purple and found her skin-colour to be off-putting.

  Adrian, however, clearly had no such reservations.

  Not for the first time, he wondered what Reya was doing at the safe house, as she wasn’t a soldier like the others – he’d never seen her carry a weapon, guard him or take part in their regur patrols. Yet she seemed well acquainted with the team tasked with protecting him.

  The faint scar on her face attracted attention; he couldn’t help but stare every time he saw it. There was a story there – he could feel it. With the nguage barrier, however, he knew he wouldn’t be learning it anytime soon and doubted that Adrian would be willing to share it with him. He was left in the dark and he didn’t like it.

  I need to learn their nguage quickly. How did Adrian get so good at it? He sounds just like they do when he speaks. While the nguage studies weren’t his favourite thing, they were a necessary evil if he wanted the chance to learn anything about the new environment he’d been thrust into.

  Deciding that his complexion was good enough too fool the others, Stanley exited the bathroom and walked down the hall towards the music room. The faint sound of a bass pying floated towards him, causing him to frown.

  The sound only grew as he walked closer. Opening the door, he spotted Adrian seated in his chair in front of Reya, who was still sitting at the desk. They both held a bass. Adrian had paused his pying when the door opened and was looking towards Stanley intently. Noticing Reya likewise staring at him, he grew self-conscious, wondering if he’d intruded on something.

  “You were gone for a while,” Adrian pointed out. “Did anything happen?” Reya remained silent as he spoke, waiting for Stanley’s reply while he shifted uncomfortably on his feet, brought to a pause by the question.

  “Everything’s fine,” Stanley deflected. “Just something I ate.”

  Adrian looked him in the eye, cutting through the lie. “I heard you coughing earlier, and it didn’t sound good. Are you sick?”

  Stanley jolted. “I’m perfectly fine,” he snapped. How did he hear? he thought inwardly. Mentally, he cursed his inattentiveness. He hadn’t heard anybody get close to the door while he was in the bathroom. Was I that loud?

  “If you’re sick, we need to know so we avoid exposing the others to it. We don’t know if they’re immune to viruses from Earth. Since you were in stasis, it’s possible whatever you might have survived throughout the years. If you caught something here, we don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Stanley insisted.

  “He doesn’t sound happy,” Reya pointed out. She might not be able to understand what was being said but she could still read body nguage. Stanley’s defensive behaviour was apparent to her even with the nguage barrier.

  Adrian turned to face her. “He’s denying he’s sick.”

  “Did you mishear?”

  “No,” Adrian shook his head. “He’s keeping quiet on whatever’s happening to him.” He cast a critical gaze back at Stanley, making him nervous.

  “Should we tell Kell and have him keep an eye on the situation?”

  “I don’t like it, but we probably should. Maybe pull Kell aside ter and talk to him privately? That way we won’t alert the others when this could very well be nothing worth worrying about.”

  Reya nodded. “I’ll talk to him when I have the chance.” She cast furtive towards Stanley. “Should we continue our lessons?” Adrian chuckled and turned to speak to Stanley, asking him a question.

  “Stanley says it’s fine if we continue pying music.”

  “Does he know how to py any instruments?” She wondered if he might be able to join them while they pyed. After asking Stanley, Adrian confirmed that the man didn’t know how to py any instruments. Her shoulders drooped slightly but raised again quickly when he added that Stanley would be leaving to go rest while they pyed together.

  Tension bled out of Adrian’s shoulders when the door clicked shut behind him as Stanley left the room. He sagged in his chair for but a moment before catching himself and straightening. He shifted his focus to the person who meant the world to him, her presence comforting him in ways he couldn’t expin while he navigated facing his past. “Now then, where were we?”

  They both smiled as the lesson resumed.

  ***

  Tassie stared at her monitor bnkly, a migraine forming at her newest problem. Commander Cyrix would be able to rest easy; the data ste hadn’t been touched during the attack. What worried her was the errant piece of code she’d found that shouldn’t have been there.

  After hours of work without pause, she’d come across traces of an external source tampering with the data ste. While the research files on the data ste were encrypted to the point of paranoia and well protected, it was the innocuous oddity she’d almost missed that made her doubt the integrity of the data ste.

  The data ste was compromised.

  The only saving grace was that the code wasn’t actively doing anything. Instead, she judged it to have been terminated abruptly before finishing whatever it was doing. It had only been a one-time access, but that didn’t leave her feeling any better about the situation.

  A call came in on her screen, detracting her attention away from her work. She answered immediately upon seeing who the caller was. “Commander,” she said respectfully as the man in question’s face dominated her holoscreen, “how may I help you?”

  “Have you found anything on Irric’s data ste?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” she replied gravely and went on to expin her discovery, keeping the technical details out of her report and distilling the necessary information. “I haven’t been able to find out what was taken yet.”

  Cyrix sported a serious expression as he spoke. “You’re positive it only happened once?” A shortlist of suspects immediately came to mind and his gaze hardened. It would do him no good to have spies under his nose; not when he needed absolute secrecy on their discoveries.

  “I am,” Tassie nodded. “If what I’ve found so far is any indication, it happened months ago. Nothing recent should have been found out.”

  “I have a suspicion as to what stolen,” Cyrix said. He’d had many discussions with Nessah after learning that information about Adrian had been leaked to the Tribunal. The brief video of him that had caught Nessah off-guard was responsible for Adrian’s existence being leaked after the two of them had gone to such lengths to keep him secret. As the only person with access to the data ste, Irric was their most likely suspect.

  After interrogating him on the matter when it had happened, they’d learned that Irric had left his data ste unattended exactly one time. Nadi, who had been te in escorting him out of the facility and back to the fg ship after being next to Irric when he’d left, was also suspect.

  He’d already looked into the soldiers that had been in the vicinity at the time, but his results had been inconclusive. The resulting list of suspects was a short one that only Nessah was aware of. “Do we have proof as to who might have done it?” he asked.

  “Not really. I only noticed this by accident. It not possible to trace where it came from, but I do know what it came from an external source of some kind. Whether or not Irric or somebody else is responsible, I wouldn’t be able to say.”

  “Do you believe him to be working for the Tribunal?”

  Tassie hesitated. “We can’t rule out the possibility, but I doubt it. If what I’ve seen on this data ste is any indication, he goes through great lengths to keep his information protected.”

  “I see. I’ll keep that in mind. As long as nothing was stolen this time around, I’ll take it and run. See if you can discover what was stolen – I want to definitively know.” Tassie nodded. Cyrix changed topics. “Tell me about Stanley. How’s he integrating into his new environment? Any issues with Adrian?”

  “It’s going about as well as it could. Things between the two are rather tense but no accidents have happened so far.” She continued her report, including the nguage lessons. Stanley had already begun to speak basic words to express his needs.

  “Is he ready to face the Tribunal?”

  “Not alone. He’ll still need a transtor to interact with them. I’d be more surprised if he’d mastered an entirely foreign nguage in a handful of days.”

  “The man truly can’t speak our nguage?”

  “No. He can converse with Adrian just fine in his nguage but not with us. Makes watching over him a bit awkward when Adrian’s not there. Does the Tribunal already want to speak with Stanley?”

  “Yes. It’s why I’m calling you. They want to speak to him within the next hour. Preferably sooner if it can be arranged. I know it’s getting te for you over there, but the Elders don’t care. Would Adrian be willing to transte? Will he give an impartial transtion?”

  “I think it’ll be fine. He knows you can just use Ava to have another discussion without him, so he gains nothing by lying about what’s being said.”

  “In that case, see to it that they’re both ready to face the Tribunal within the next twenty minutes.”

  Tassie saluted her superior and the call ended. She cast one st gnce at her work before locking up her workstation so that nobody else could access it. Task complete, she made her way off the ship and into the house where she knew she’d once again be bearing news nobody wanted to hear.