REI FLOATED BACK up out of the white haze. His body felt impossibly heavy. He knew he was awake now, but he still felt like he was in a dream state, still felt the same vague, insistent unease.
Through his body he sensed a kind of low-frequency hum that he couldn’t actually hear. He couldn’t focus his thoughts. He felt cut off from the real world, a sense of unreality enveloping him like some sort of transparent skin. It was as if his body no longer belonged to him.
Lying in bed, his eyes closed, he listened to someone talking outside the room. It seemed like a voice, but he couldn’t understand what it was saying. It was like the buzzing of bees.
He opened his eyes, rose unsteadily from the bed, and staggered over to the white door. The buzzing in his ears wouldn’t go away. He put his hand on the doorknob and pulled. It didn’t open. After a befuddled moment he realized the door opened out. He braced his shoulder against it and turned the knob. The door swung open easily. So easily that Rei lost his balance and took two or three inadvertent steps out into the corridor.
It looked like a typical hospital hallway, but it was dimly lit and deserted. The buzzing sound had disappeared. It was silent. Then he heard an echoing cry, a sound like an animal being strangled or the screech of a bird. A white form floated toward him. It was Marnie. The soles of her shoes squeaked along the highly polished floor and she swung her hips as she walked, her full breasts swaying. The very mundanity of the scene fueled Rei’s suspicions. The nurse seemed more like an animate doll than a woman. Feeling a palpable revulsion at the sight of her, he retreated back into the room.
“You need to rest,” she told him.
He sat down on the bed. She extended her arm, took hold of Rei’s wrist, and checked his pulse.
“You seem a bit tense, Lieutenant.”
“I think you know why. Tell me the truth. Where are we?”
“Beneath TAB-14.”
“I’d like to check out the surface. Where’s Yukikaze?”
“You shouldn’t exert yourself. We’re continuing to service your plane.”
“You can’t touch her central file.”
“Understood. We’re working on the ejection system, reattaching the canopy, and resetting the ejection seats.”
“Yukikaze uses type EESS-81-03 ejection seats. Do you have those here? And the canopy is a type made specifically for the Sylphid line.”
“We’re fabricating them in an underground plant. You can’t fly without a canopy, after all. And we’ll manage something for the ejection seats. It may take a little time, though.”
“Why don’t you contact Faery Base? That’d be the simplest thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
“We can’t transmit a signal. Lieutenant, can you activate Yukikaze’s comm? We just can’t figure out the systems, no matter what we try. It has safeguards everywhere.”
Rei’s anxiety increased. What were the survivors of TAB-14 up to? In his current state, he couldn’t figure it out.
“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,
