The Purification: Book 3 of the Evaran Chronicles (32 page)

Kal waved his hand to the side, and the door to the room slid shut.

“Don’t go anywhere, and alert me if anything comes near me.”

“You are the only living being in—”

“I don’t care! Just do it!”

“As you wish.”

She gripped her PSD as her breathing slowed and her eyelids got heavy. After a moment, she was asleep. Dreams of the incident danced in her mind as she tossed and turned through the night. Each time she awoke, she checked the room and asked Kal if she was the only one there. The thought that she was only alive due to her nanobots did not escape her. If they had not interfered in the hallucinations she had been seeing, it would have been all over.

When she awoke the next morning, she clenched her jaw. She did feel a bit better, but there was pain all over. A headache pounded away inside her head. “Kal, is the parasite gone?”

A beam scanned her.

“The parasite has been cleansed, and its poison removed.”

She sighed. “How are my other wounds?”

“The internal bleeding has stopped. No vital organs were punctured. The gel has formed a protective cover over your wounds.”

“Feel like shit.”

Kal stared at her.

She shook her head. The smell of feces and urine rankled her nose. Looking down, she saw that her bodily functions did not care if she had been asleep. “Ugh … I need a shower. Is there something that can waterproof the pads?”

“The blue pads can be applied over your current pads.”

“Fine … I’ll come back and clean this bed later then.”

“The bed is self-cleaning. Once you leave, it will automatically clean itself after one hour.”

She nodded at Kal and slid her legs to the side. Pain shot through her as she climbed off the bed. Limping over to the cabinet, she was able to get the translucent blue pads and apply them over her wounds. She reached her living quarters and went directly to the hygiene pod. Sitting in the shower area as the water massaged her sent waves of relaxation through her. After cleaning up, she went to her bed and lay down.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Emily opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. She reached down and touched her pad. The pain had been minimized. Touching her leg wound verified that. The nausea had gone as well as her headache. Tingling sensations were still active around the wounded areas, but for the first time since the incident, she felt normal. She looked around for her PSD and found it had rolled out of her hand and to her side.

Opening it up, she half expected to see a message waiting for her, but she now knew that was a hallucination. It had been so real to her. Her head lowered as she remembered the sensation of hugging Dr. Snowden, then Evaran hugging both of them. The realization that she was just a week shy of being on the prison planet for three months danced on the edges of her mind. If the Torvatta had not come by now, something was very wrong. She hung her head as she thought again of having to spend the rest of her extended life on this nightmarish planet.

After checking her injuries, she cleaned up. The gel that had been on under the pads looked like it had sealed the wounds. However, the pain underneath them suggested she was not at full health. At least she could take off the pads she had wrapped. When she was in the shower, she paid extra attention to making sure she did not aggravate the new skin that had formed overnight. She suspected the nanobots had a hand in helping to speed it along.

After showering, she stood in front of the clothing adjuster closet. “Kal. Activate.”

Kal shimmered into view. “Good morning. How may I be of service?”

She gestured at the empty block that had embedded clothes in it before. “I need a new outfit. My old one is torn and blood soaked, and I don’t know what else might be on it.”

“What type?”

“You mean there are other types of outfits?”

“There are seven outfits available.”

She sighed. “And you … didn’t mention this before because …”

Kal stared at her.

She shook her head. If V had been here, he would have told her of the various suits, probably to the last detail. She had gotten used to Kal, but found it easier to look it up in the Coraanan systems sometimes. “Well … which one has the best defensive capability?”

Kal waved a hand. “The field guard suit.”

A gray mesh-like suit with rubberlike pads on every segment of the body appeared in the clothing block. It was a one-piece suit and looked much bulkier than the one she had previously. The neck area had a circular metal band separating the body from the wet-suit-like head covering. To the sides in smaller embedded blocks was a small forearm guard, a set of rubberlike boots, and a belt with various pouches on it.

Emily looked at Kal. “What defensive capabilities does it have?”

Kal pointed at the mesh. “The underlying mesh is highly resistant to physical force while allowing freedom of movement. It is also waterproof.” He tapped the upper leg rubber pad. “The defensive pads can mitigate large amounts of physical and energy damage.” He gestured at the boots. “These can absorb falling damage.”

“You mean like if I jumped off a cliff?”

“It can sustain up to around fifty feet.”

She eyed the forearm guard. “What about that?”

“It is the interface. It allows for interaction with the suit and general information.”

She sighed. “What interaction and what general information?”

“The interface allows the suit to extend a helmet and camouflage. It also displays general information such as the time and has an onboard database for identifying objects.”

“This woulda been nice to have back in the first facility,” she said. “But I guess I asked the wrong questions. Lesson learned the hard way.”

Kal stared at her.

“Kal. Deactivate.”

Kal shimmered out of view.

She stood on the clothing adjuster pad and hit the button. Once the suit and other items had been adjusted, she slipped into them. The suit had a zipper-like device in the back, and she noticed that it went all the way around to the front of the crotch. She smirked at the thought that it would be easy to unzip if she needed to relieve herself. The boots slipped on with ease, and the forearm guard snapped into place. She had half a mind to cut her hair as she tucked it into the suit. Moving around, the suit seemed just as light as the other one. She wondered why they did not just wear this all the time.

The forearm guard had several buttons on it, but the big green button seemed obvious to her. When she pressed it, a vertical screen shot up with various options available. She pressed the helmet option. Out of the metal neck guard shot a series of overlapping steel bands. A glass-like shield shot down over her face, and a HUD appeared on the edges of the inside. She pressed the helmet button again, and the helmet slid back. Her senses had been obscured when it was up, but maybe there was a situation where having it out could be advantageous.

The field guide feature would highlight an object positioned in front of the screen and provide additional information about it. She could see the usefulness of the suit if out and about in the field. It reminded her of the PSD’s augmented reality feature. The camouflage option intrigued her. When she activated it, she could still see herself. Going in front of a mirror told another story. Although it was not perfect, her form was somewhat still visible in the light distortions, but it would be hard to see at a distance. She leaned flat against the wall and noticed that her suit took on the appearance of the wall.

Outside the general information like time and the overland map feature, the power bar stood out to her. It looked like it could operate for a week or so at a time continuously. If she did not use the systems much, maybe she could stretch that out. She figured there was probably a recharge station somewhere in the facility.

She placed her PSD in one of the side pouches and headed up to the specimen surveillance lab. Several hours passed as she perused the field guide, a section she had skimmed over before. Looking at the section that covered the area between this facility and the next one, she saw the tree and parasite that had infected her. She snorted. If she had known this beforehand, the life-and-death drama could have been avoided. Another lesson learned. Take the time to be prepared.

She eased back into the chair. It irked her that letting her guard down, even for a moment, almost led to her death. That was a brutal lesson to learn, but one she would hold close and make instinctive. She had to if she wanted to survive. Some things would be hard to prepare for, like Kazaal. Even the advanced suit she wore would not have helped much. It might have slowed Kazaal down, but she concluded that the end result would probably have been the same.

She spent the next two weeks healing up and researching. Going out would only be feasible if she could respond to a situation without being hampered. The healing went by fast, but she knew that if she had to do it without the facility’s help, it would have been much longer. The creatures that she had run into were not listed in the field guide. She suspected they must have appeared after the Coraanan left, although if not through the rift doors, then from somewhere else. The field guide was probably out of date, but it did have some pertinent information. She still had her PSD to help out. Getting her sleep cycle in sync had been hard, but with the help of some sleeping medicine, she was back on track.

On the last day of the final week, she did a final check. She had found a backpack that was a bit bulkier than the one she had before. The suit had some load-bearing qualities to help offset that. She made sure to test out her training with the suit on and found it flowed naturally.

The waterproof sleeping bag was her second-favorite find. It had a similar material to the suit mesh, but without the rubber pads. There was a button to seal it, and it had micro holes to allow air in. The part she liked about it most was that it was small when folded up and lightweight. She planned to use it in the upcoming journey. With a restock of water and food, she headed out.

The trip to the air pod facility three miles north stirred memories of going the other way. She grimaced as the memory of the pain shot through her mind. This time around, no tree or creature would get the jump on her.

She slipped into a different air pod when she reached the warehouse. The smell and the bloodstains on the floor served another pain-filled memory. The air pod lifted off and, after thirty minutes, arrived at the other side. She jumped out before it rammed into the semiclosed doors. The shock absorption of the boots from hitting the ground made her appreciate them. She surveyed the path ahead as skittering noises filled the air. Standing still, she focused on everything around her, from the sounds of the creatures in the warehouse to the light breeze blowing around her. Her heightened senses seemed to be more aware of her surroundings.

When she arrived near the spot where she had been attacked, she paused to survey it. She noted that there was not much left of the creatures to look at, mostly stains and bits of the white dried substance. The wooden spears were still there.

She picked one up and studied it. It had simple designs on the body of it, and the end piece looked like some type of sharpened stone. The memory of being stabbed by it jolted through her mind as she rubbed her leg where it had been punctured.

Looking up at the tree, she could now see the needles. They were scattered in dense groups on the branches. Even if an animal did not try to feed on the scattered nuts on the ground, they could still be pricked by the needles falling on them or scattered about.

After completing eight miles of the thirty-three left to go, she decided to take a break. Using her PSD, she found a tree she could climb without being used as fertilizer. After reaching the top, she surveyed the forest around her.

Smoke rising in the east caught her attention. Using the PSD, she zoomed in. A village with dull gray buildings that reminded her of clay appeared. It was about two miles away. Probably where those humanoids came from that attacked her earlier.

Looking north, she noticed a valley with a large tree about three miles away. She checked the overland map and decided she would go around it. Something about the tree seemed unusual to her. Maybe it was the size, or the way the branches and foliage looked.

She shimmied down the tree and had a late lunch. In one day, she had covered seventeen miles, four of them by the air pod. Her legs were not as sore as she had figured they would be, but she did not want to overtax them. She went west off the path and into the forest, looking for a place to bed down. A large tree lying on the ground presented an opportunity. Using the morphable metal to make a shovel from her PSD, she dug a small crevice against it. Several bugs scattered away at her activity. She paused to look at them run. Before all this began, she would have run screaming. Now they were just a nuisance.

After walking a bit away to relieve herself, she headed back to her new enclosure and unpacked her sleeping bag. The thought of watching training videos crossed her mind, but dissipated as she remembered the last time she let her guard down in a hostile environment. One thing she did differently this time was scout out a parasite-free tree that she could scramble up if need be. She slid the sleeping bag into the crevice. After crawling in, she sealed it while still wearing all her gear and closed her eyes.