She could still go into hibernation mode and slipped into a dreamless coma. After eighty years she woke herself up, brought everything back online and checked for any damages. Not much could go wrong when there was no weather, no wind and no atmosphere. Nothing rusted or rotted or sweated from the heat or cold. She made a supply run to the Agro planet, had the medical pod on standby and the house was stocked with fresh food. She was ready to go with him, ready to jump through time, ready to help him find her and keep him safe.
He never came back.
47
Arrivals
Maddy was ready when she felt the air change in the room. The lid of the medical tank was open, she stood prepared to catch him and was exited to tell him the news.
She could travel with him.
The air shimmered, there was a pop and a blood-soaked girl was crumpling to the ground. Maddy caught her and ran to the medical facility. She’d been stabbed in the chest and shot. Her leg looked broken. Raw infection lines covered her face and her lidded eyes were black. She reeked of smoke and gunpowder. When she held her close as she ran, she could feel the thudding of her heart and it was slowing, blood was barely spurting out. She splashed her in, held her under the healing liquids until they were forced into her lungs and covered her ravaged body. She jerked once then was still, the agony on her face fading away as she became serene. Maddy slammed the lid and her fingers flew over the dials, recalibrating for her size, weight and gender. She stood back and stared through the glass, at a savage version of herself. At Scarlet.
“What have you done, Jessie?” she asked then ran to the new ship.
She had to hurry, he could be coming any minute. Voice commands sent doors flying open and internal lights flickered on. The little medical bay had a healing tank and she turned it on, got its molecular regenerator humming to life. She stopped. Had she just heard a thump from inside the house? Had he come and she wasn’t there to catch him? She ran back to the airlock and looked inside. Nothing. He wasn’t there. She spun and sprinted back to the ship, indifferent to the subzero temperatures, lack of air and the negative vacuum. She formed her hands into wrenches and started unbolting it from the floor. Her clothes were inhibiting her so she ripped right through them as she sprouted more arms with more wrenches and loosed the machine. She ignored the pain it caused her.
She pulled the anti-gravity dolly and slid it under the front part and activated it then disconnected the power cord, letting the backup batteries continue to cycle it up to operational status. She lifted the back end and rushed down the ramp, trying to keep it level. It was a heavy, bulky machine and built solidly but couldn’t take a lot of abuse. She guided it into the airlock and threw off her shredded jacket as she waited for it to cycle. Once inside she kicked the couch aside, lowered her end then shoved the anti-gravity dolly out of the way.
He still wasn’t back. Eight minutes had passed. She stripped off her pants in case she needed to alter her form and waited. She waited for the atmospheric change and she shimmer that would let her know he was coming.
Nothing happened. She dashed over to the outlet, plugged the machine in the hurried back.
Still nothing.
She chanced a peek as Scarlet, checked the readouts. She was alive but barely. The machine kept resetting and rescanning, one of the readings was off the charts and it was having trouble calibrating. It was the zombie virus, it had never encountered anything quite like it. If the processors hadn’t already been familiar with the unusual properties of Jessie’s blood, they wouldn’t have been able to figure out what to do with her. She ran back to the living room and watched the area where he came and went but it remained unchanged. No shimmer of air. No sudden change in the atmosphere.
She waited, perfectly still, arms slightly extended, hands ready to catch and emotions cycled through her faster than she could shut them down. Fear the chief among them. If Scarlet was this damaged, if she was seconds away from death, what had happened to him? Why wasn’t he here? Why hadn’t he sent her then come immediately?
She waited, an eternity passing with each second and dread began coiling its way through her. He should have been here by now. Seventeen minutes had passed. She didn’t feel them but tears rolled down her cheeks and were reabsorbed. He could be dead. The fight they were in had been brutal and violent. If she was damaged so profoundly, what had happened to him? Was his bullet riddled body lying in some burning building? Had he finally been killed?
She almost cried out with relief when the air became thicker, the blue shimmer appeared as Jessie popped into existence. He was dying, too. She didn’t have time to wonder at what kind of hell they’d been through, she scooped him as he fell and rushed over to the medical pod. His head was broken and one eye was nearly black, the pupil fully dilated. He was covered in blood, most of it his own. He had been in a great battle, him and Scarlet both, but they had survived. Their hearts still beat and the pods would repair them.
She slipped him gently into the healing fluid and he had a moment of clarity before she closed the lid.
“Scarlet?” he asked weakly.
“She is safe.” Maddy
