“Are you… allies?”
“What are you saying, Lieutenant? Of course we are. As soon as we complete maintenance of your plane, you’ll be sent back. We have no intention of holding you here.”
“I’m thirsty. Can you get me something to drink?”
“Of course. I’ll bring you some liquid food.”
“Liquid food?”
“Your body is still recovering, Lieutenant.”
What Marnie brought for him was like a mixture of bouillon and vegetable juice. It tasted awful. She insisted that he swallow it, telling him to think of it as medicine. Rei could only manage to choke down a third of a cupful before giving it back to her.
“That’s enough,” he said and lay down again, trying to restrain his gag reflex. He looked up at the white ceiling. “I heard something strange a little while ago. A weird sound, like a swarm of bees buzzing.”
“Maybe it was the air conditioning system. Sometimes it doesn’t run that well.”
“Oh.”
Marnie smiled, then took the cup and left the room.
After the door shut Rei drew the gun from his vest. It was a 9mm automatic pistol with a roller locking system and light recoil. There were thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He held the grip and clicked the safety off.
He wondered why they hadn’t taken it away from him. Was it to prove to him that he was in a safe environment? It was true that he could hardly expect an enemy to leave him armed, but he still didn’t feel safe here. Even as they cared for him, he suspected them of some treachery. And the overall impression that the place gave was oddly still, lacking the tension that normally defined the atmosphere of a frontline base. He couldn’t put it into words, but his instincts were screaming at him that he was in danger.
He got up, holding the pistol at the ready, but just as he was about to step through the door, a wave of nausea broke over him. Slipping the gun back into his vest, he gripped the doorframe and called for Marnie. She came running down the gloomy corridor. He got the impression that she was the only one there. He asked her where the toilet was and then rushed to it. His guts turned inside out. After he finished vomiting, he reeled with an overwhelming exhaustion.
Marnie helped him back to the room and he collapsed onto the bed. He felt feverish.
He awoke to the sound of her voice. He raised his arm to check his chronometer and saw that ten hours had elapsed, but he had no true sense of time’s passage. His fever had gone down, and there was now an I.V. needle stuck in his right arm.
“You seem to have a viral infection, Lieutenant,” Marnie said. “You must have caught it out in the desert.”
“No… No, that’s not right…”
“It seems to be presenting neurological symptoms. You’ve been hallucinating. That probably was the cause of your distress. But you’re okay now. You’ll be just fine. How’s your appetite?”
His stomach was empty, but he never wanted to put that liquid food in his mouth again.
“I’ve made some soup for you,” Marnie said as she drew a small trolley up to the bedside and shifted the bed’s movable table close to Rei’s chest. He sat up. She placed a bowl down on the table. It smelled decent… He decided not to eat the portable rations he had and took the spoon she offered him. He took a cautious sip. It tasted good.
“What is this?”
“Chicken broth.”
“Chicken? It tastes different, though. It’s not instant, is it?”
“Don’t spill it, Lieutenant. There’s more if you want. If you eat too fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”
Rei did as Marnie said and ate slowly.
Major Yazawa came in and set a small computer on the side table. “I figured you must be bored, Lieutenant,” he said. “Would you like to communicate with Yukikaze?”
The major turned the computer on. The display glowed and an image of Yukikaze appeared. She was in a large maintenance hangar, or something that resembled one. It was hard to tell. The image was a little hazy.
“This device can synthesize a transmission on any frequency or wavelength. I’d do it myself if I could get a link through to the plane. I imagine you know how to contact it without triggering the security systems.”
“So you can monitor how I do it? What are you people after? You’re acting like…”
Like they were JAM. Just as he was about to say it, a cold wave prickled the skin over his entire body.
JAM. They were JAM. They had to be. These were the first JAM to ever show themselves to human eyes. They were JAM…
“What’s wrong?” asked Yazawa. “You look like you’re scared of something.”
“Major,” Marnie said smoothly, “The lieutenant is mentally unstable. It’s Faery Fever. It looks like he caught it out in the desert. May I ask you to leave now? I have to administer a sedative. Please, Lieutenant, lie down.”
“I… I’m not crazy,” Rei said. “Take me to Yukikaze.”
“You can leave at any time, Lieutenant. However, we would advise against it. You can’t fly in your condition, can you?”
Rei tried to get out of bed, but the major held him down. He was strong. Marnie slid a hypodermic needle into his arm again. A terrible weakness spread across his body.
“You… What are you…?”
“We’re your friends,” Marnie answered. “The same organic life as you.” Both she and the major laughed.
“A bit different, though,” Yazawa said. “We made a small mistake. A stupid one, really.”
“We realized it when we gave you that liquid food. It was the D-type alpha-amino acids,” Marnie added. “Lieutenant, did that chicken broth taste good? I imagine it was to your taste. You can digest that.”
They were voices in a dream. I’m having a nightmare, Rei thought. The desert must have gotten to him. When he woke up next, he’d be all right. He’d be back in the real world at the normal hospital at Faery Base. No doubt about it…
Once more he fell into the white void.
HE AWOKE TO the same room. Yukikaze was still displayed on the computer the major had brought to him. He saw she had been fitted with a new canopy.
His head felt hollow. He remembered being given some sort of drug and that he’d heard something very important just as he was sliding into sleep, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He gathered his strength and ventured out into the corridor. One direction led to a dead end. He turned around and backtracked to a T-intersection. To the right was a nurse’s station. To the left was a short passage that ended at a metal door. He thought it might be an emergency exit but couldn’t budge it.
He heard Marnie approaching, her footsteps making that awful squeaking noise.
“Do you need something, Lieutenant?”
“Where’s Lieutenant Burgadish?”
“I’m afraid he’s—”
“Dead? Let me out of here. This isn’t a hospital, it’s a prison.”
“Please return to your room, Lieutenant. You don’t look well at all.”
Seeing no other option, Rei went back to the room. Yukikaze glowed on the computer screen. As Rei looked at her, he grew more and more agitated by the feeling that he’d forgotten something. Why was Major Yazawa so concerned about Yukikaze? If he wanted to activate her comm system, all he had to do was turn it on, right? If they tried to force their way into her internal systems electronically, she might activate her self-destruct protocol, but she couldn’t stop a human from flipping a switch. He assumed she couldn’t, anyway. So in short, the reason must be that Major Yazawa didn’t know how to turn on the system or to use Yukikaze’s instrumentation. But if he was in the FAF, how could he not…
Once again a chilling unease swept through Rei’s body, bringing with it a powerful sense of déjà vu. He clutched at his head.