Ground Zero: Prequel to Numbered Series



  * * * *

  Ground Zero

  a Numbered Series Prequel

  Copyright © 2015 by Magus Tor

  Editing by Chase Nottingham

  Formatting by JT Formatting

  ISBN:

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Title Page

  Ground Zero

  Thank You

  A Preview of Want, Numbered - Book One

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other titles

  Aurelia stood at the window of her bedroom pod, looking out at City 01 spread beneath her. Each carefully delineated block housed thousands, all encapsulated in towering, spiral buildings, exactly like hers. She knew that every window she saw looked in upon much the same room as she was in. A bed. A desk. Storage. All carefully molded into the plastic of the pod, built in with soft, gentle curves. White. So much white. With a sigh, she wondered how many of those rooms held someone like her: a soon-to-be graduate. How many bedroom pods were home to someone as simultaneously happy and nervous as she was?

  She leaned her head against the thick, cold plastic of the window, letting the coolness bleed into her skin. She shivered. Today, she was going to become a fully fledged med Worker. Her training was over, and now she had to save people. Or not. The not saving was a whole lot harder than the saving. She blinked and swallowed as her mind drifted back. It was only three weeks ago that she had been in alone in a room with Marnee, yet it felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Can you remember the day we met?” Marnee had asked, clutching Aurelia's hand, voice breathy and words slurred.

  “Definitely,” Aurelia had said, smiling down at her best friend. “I can see it in my head right now. Sitting in the auditorium, waiting for the head of the medical institute to address us. Our very first day, and I was terrified that someone, somewhere had got everything wrong, and I wasn't supposed to be there at all.”

  “They never get it wrong.” Marnee shook her head. “They don't make mistakes.”

  “No,” Aurelia had softly agreed. “No, they don't make mistakes, do they?”

  Marnee shifted her head on the pillow, closing her eyes as if the effort of keeping them open and moving at the same time were too much. Aurelia realized she was moving into dangerous territory, so she'd gripped Marnee's hand tighter, then brushed the pale blonde hair away from the girl's forehead.

  “I was terrified anyway,” Aurelia whispered. “But you were there. Right next to me. Holding my hand like you are now.”

  Marnee had given a weak laugh, her green eyes sparkling a little for a moment. “And it was cold like it is now.”

  Head still against the window, Aurelia felt a tear trickle down her cheek, tickling her skin. She could skip the ceremony. It would be frowned upon, but she could. However, she'd promised Marnee she wouldn't, that she'd be there, and it would be a celebration. Still, even if she didn't attend, she'd need to go and pick up her job posting. Find out where she was supposed to spend the rest of her life.

  “It's time to go, Aurelia,” came her father's voice over the com system.

  She swallowed again, scrubbed her face with her hands, and straightened herself.

  “Coming, Dad.”

  For the last time she looked at herself in the mirror wearing her cadet uniform. The next time she was in here, she'd have a whole new look. She gave herself a half smile. She'd spent so long dressed as a cadet that the uniform was more familiar to her than her own skin. A change, she decided, turning away from the mirror, might be a good thing.

  The auditorium was huge. Breathtaking in size. Aurelia's eyes widened as she saw how many people were in there. Leaving her home that morning, her parents proudly walking her to the public transport pod, she'd been confident. No, she corrected herself, she'd been scared and confident—a strange mixture—but she'd felt ready and sure that this was the right thing for her. Out of all the specializations, med Worker was the only one she'd felt drawn to. Her father was Tech, her mother Chem, but she'd had no interest in either.

  Desperately she scanned the aisle, looking for the number she had been given. She was about to panic, not finding the digits, when she finally saw what she was looking for, and taking a deep breath, she turned into the correct row. Pushing past knees and trying not to step on feet, she found her seat and slid gratefully into it.

  What, she thought, was she doing here? What if they'd made a mistake? Her aptitude had been tested, like everyone else's, but maybe the tests had been wrong. Maybe she didn't belong here with all these serious faces. Her lip trembled, so she bit it hard. She didn't want to cry, not here. She twisted her hands in her lap, trying to regain control of herself. There was a movement from next to her. Slowly, a thin, white hand, fingers open, came into view, and without even thinking about it, Aurelia grasped it, holding tightly. The hand squeezed back.

  Looking up, she saw the smile first, then dancing green eyes, then hair so blonde it was almost white. The girl grinned, and Aurelia found herself returning the wide smile. Though no words passed between them, Aurelia knew she had found her first friend at the medical institute.

  The lights dimmed, and she wriggled higher in her seat to see better. There was a podium on the stage, a bright spotlight shining down on it. She grew more interested in the proceedings, the small hand in her own warming her fingers. She fidgeted again, then schooled herself to keep still. In general education she'd been a good student, but her inability to sit still had earned her more than one demerit. Now though, now she was ten, and as her gen education trainer had told her, the tenth year was more than old enough to sit properly in a chair. From the corner of her eye, she saw her blonde neighbor shift in her seat. Smiling, she wondered what else they had in common.

  Whatever whispered conversations had been happening faded out as a tall, big boned man mounted the stairs to the stage. He wore the red uniform of a med Worker, and his footsteps rang through the echoing auditorium. There was no other sound as he made his way to the podium, then stood, facing the hundreds of scared students in front of him. His eyes surveyed each row in silence before he nodded once and said, “Welcome to City 01 Medical Institute.”

  His voice was deep, authoritative. He kept his hands on the podium as he spoke. “You are here because you have aptitude, though that guarantees nothing. Some of you will be the med Workers of tomorrow. Some of you will be Failures.”

  There was some movement at this. Failures were not a part of general educ
ation, at least not as far as Aurelia knew. It wasn't until specialized training that students could be ejected for not passing a schoolyear. No one knew what happened to Failures, but each and every one of them knew they did not want to be one.

  “Over the next seven years you will be trained to be leaders. You will learn to give life, to save life, to take life. It will not be easy. And yet you are all an integral part of our society. You, along with the tech Workers, the chem Workers, the transport Workers, the hospitality Workers, will do your part to make humankind a thriving and prosperous race, to keep the Lunar Empire running as it should. You have found your calling, and I urge each of you to follow it seriously. We do not tolerate failure at the medical institute. Not in any form.”

  Aurelia squeezed her neighbor's hand tightly. This all sounded like a lot of responsibility. The man looked once more around the room, nodded again as though satisfied with what he saw, and turned to leave the stage. Glancing left and right, Aurelia saw that everyone around her looked as anxious as she felt. They weren't children anymore. Not now.

  It wasn't until everyone was streaming out of the auditorium that Aurelia learned her new friend's name.

  “Marnee,” said the girl, skipping a step to keep up.

  They walked together to their first class, basic human anatomy, and as she settled into her seat, Aurelia suddenly felt like she'd been in the empty, white classroom her whole life. She'd done her required reading and more. As the trainer flashed pictures onto the wall, she carefully recited the names of the things she'd learned.

  “Wow,” said Marnee over lunch. “You know everything!”

  Aurelia picked at her plate of synth meat mixed with potatoes. Gods, she was tired of eating the same meal every day.

  “But you read the books, too,” she said.

  “Sure.” Marnee shrugged. “But you seem to have eaten them. I think you know every word.”

  “It helps the more you read,” Aurelia advised. “If you want, I could send some extra books to your screen so you can read them, too.”

  Marnee nodded and pulled out her roll up screen to add Aurelia's contact. “Still scared?” she asked, tapping icons.

  Aurelia shook her head. “Nope. This is easy. Well, it's easy right now.”

  Marnee gave a sigh. “I'm sure it's going to get harder. You know . . . when . . .”

  Both of them knew what she was referring to, but neither really wanted to speak of it. It was common knowledge that med Workers were the ones whom injected. But it didn't mean they had to like doing it. For Aurelia, it was the thing she dreaded most, the requirement that had almost stopped her from accepting med training. She had no idea whether she was capable of injecting or not. In the end, it had been her father who convinced her to accept it. “Learn more,” he'd told her. “When the time comes, maybe you'll find that you can do it.”

  She'd agreed, but she knew she was only putting off the inevitable. At least, she thought, she had a few years before she needed to deal with the matter. Putting her fork down, she slid her plate away.

  “Library?”

  Marnee nodded.

  There was no recreation time now, not like in general education. The days of childhood were over. Aurelia was sad about this. She'd enjoyed playing kickball, reading books her parents had given her, having free time. But she also knew life was short. After all, most of those around her, including herself, would be injected at fifty-five. That gave her only another thirty-seven years to go. Time was not very long indeed.

  “Let's go, kiddo.”

  Her father was standing by the front door, tapping the time reader on his wrist.

  “I'm coming,” said Aurelia with a smile.

  Graduation was the one day that Workers could be guaranteed a free afternoon, but Aurelia knew both her parents would probably go back to their respective jobs after the ceremony. Her mother came up behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “One second,” she said.

  Neatly and deftly, she swept Aurelia's hair up and began to braid it. Aurelia allowed her neck to relax and wondered briefly if she'd ever be as good at this as her mom was. She'd have to learn. No one else was going to do her hair once she was at her job posting. Sure, she could do the simple ponytail stuff, but she enjoyed the little piece of uniqueness it gave her to have one of the elaborate City 04 styles that her mother had learned to do as a child.

  “Nervous?” asked her father.

  “A little,” she admitted as her mother wove a connector onto the bottom of the braid.

  “Don't be. You've done well. We're proud of you,” he said.

  “I feel . . .” she struggled for the word. “Alone.”

  Her mother put her arm around her shoulder, and her father stroked her head. They knew. Marnee had been like a second daughter to them, frequently joining their little household in the evenings so that Aurelia could help her study.

  “You have us,” her mother said.

  Aurelia smiled. She did. She was luckier than most. Most Worker parents took little interest in their child beyond the extra rations and privileges it gave them once they had bred. Her parents had always been different, though. More involved, maybe. Definitely more supportive, encouraging her to think for herself. She didn't know what had made them that way, but she was grateful for it. It just felt, well, strange not to be with Marnee. Different not to hold her hand.

  Her mother slipped her hand into Aurelia's, as though reading her thoughts.

  “Come on. Let's go get you graduated,” she said.

  Gripping her mom's hand tight, Aurelia nodded. Time to find out where life was going to take her.

  “I can't do it!” moaned Marnee.

  Aurelia laid down her screen and looked across the library table at her friend. “Can't do what?”

  “Can't become a med-A Worker,” said Marnee, putting her head in her hands.

  Their fifth year at the institute was beginning, and as all fifth-year students, they were to become medical assistant Workers. There were some things you could only learn by doing, rather than by reading, and this part of their training reflected that. Aurelia herself was looking forward to getting more hands-on, but Marnee had been agonizing for weeks about their first real patients.

  “You know everything,” Aurelia said. “I've tested you. You've tested yourself. You're totally ready.”

  “But . . . but there's people,” wailed Marnee.

  Aurelia had to bite back a smile. She knew what Marnee's problem was. As long as things had been confined to books and pictures, she'd been fine, but the thought of connecting what they had learned to real, living patients was a little daunting. She looked down at the red flashes on the sleeve of her cadet uniform, marking her as a med-A Worker, then looked back at Marnee.

  “I'll be there with you,” she promised. “You'll do fine.”

  Marnee rolled her eyes but nodded. She knew Aurelia would look out for both of them.

  Their first task was a relatively easy one. Taken into the long wards of the institute's training hospital, they simply had to go to an assigned patient, access his or her chart on their screens, check the diagnosis, and be prepared to report. Simple. Aurelia was done within minutes, her mind carefully piecing together information, analyzing possible mistakes that could have been made in diagnosis and eliminating them one by one. Satisfied that her job was done, she sought out Marnee, who was standing by the bedside of her patient, anxiously reading his chart.

  “Swelling in both legs,” she murmured, as Aurelia came to join her.

  “Think about everything that can show that symptom, then check them off one by one,” Aurelia told Marnee quietly. “Ignore the diagnosis on the chart for now.”

  Marnee swallowed and rolled up her screen with shaking hands. She looked at Aurelia, who nodded. “Go on,” she said. “You can do this.”

  Noticing a trainer scouting the floor, Aurelia quickly made her way back to her own patient and stood quietly by his bedside. She knew Marnee could do it; she only had
to have confidence in herself. There wasn't much more she could do now. Just wait.

  The minutes ticked by, and Aurelia shifted from foot to foot until finally the trainer called a stop to their examinations. There were only six of them in the room, and since five of the med-A Workers agreed with the diagnoses given to their patients, their summarizing took little time. Marnee was last.

  “So lymphedema,” said the trainer to Marnee, his voice clipped and short. “What treatment protocol do you recommend?”

  Marnee cleared her throat before she spoke. “Actually,” she said. “I think. I mean. Well, I think we should keep the patient under observation for the next few hours, then probably let him go home.”

  Aurelia furrowed her brow. She knew that Marnee should have recommended drainage, maybe even massage, and that the patient should be kept in the hospital for at least the next three days. The trainer obviously thought the same and was trying to remain patient with his dull student.

  “That will alleviate the lymphedema?” he asked.

  “Um, no,” said Marnee. Aurelia held her breath. “I don't think the patient has lymphedema at all,” she stuttered.

  The trainer raised an eyebrow. “You don't?”

  Marnee shook her head, her cheeks reddening. “The thing is . . . I was talking to him, and, um, well, he only arrived in City 01 this morning. He came straight to the institute. He took a shuttle flight from City 04. And, um, well, I think the swelling could be from the added pressure during the flight, I mean.”

  Tilting his head to look better at the blushing girl in front of him, the trainer narrowed his eyes. He pulled out his own screen and tapped into the patient's record. Fingers hovering over the screen, he brought up transit records to verify what Marnee had said. Then he nodded.

  “Next time walk around during your flight,” he said directly to the patient.

  Marnee snuck a glance at Aurelia, who grinned at her. She'd done good work.

  “Thank you,” the trainer said, looking far from grateful. “Marnee here has illustrated one of the finer points of diagnosis: talking to your patient.”