He woke up in pain, gasping to life like a man breaching the surface of frozen water. Pain thrummed deep inside his chest, radiating outward into his limbs, using his major arteries as free highways into the rest of his system.
But it wasn't the pain in his chest that was so distracting, but the pain of his leg and his eye.
Dim light blinded his only working eye, and he squinted. Tears of pain dripped down his cheek as his eye attempted to readjust itself, but it tool longer than it should have and it left him in agony for what felt like hours on end, but was probably closer to minutes.
All around him voices echoed.
It took him even longer to decode that mess.
"Adam, Adam can you hear us."
Something touched the side of his face.
"Vitals."
"Heart rate 83 steady and within range blood oxygen 96% and climbing.
"Brain function."
"Elevated, he's awake."
"Give him a few seconds."
Adam grimaced and turned his head as if that was going to help him figure out what was going on.
It didn't.
Something touched the other side of his face, holding him in place. A light was shined in his good eye. He grimaced and tried to pull away.
"Reactivity good."
"Adam can you hear us?"
He opened his mouth to answer, finally understanding the words that he was haring, but only managed to wheeze pathetically as dry air squeaked past even dryer vocal cords.
He gasped again.
"Sit him up."
And suddenly he was vertical, or somewhat vertical, and a cold plastic straw was being pressed to his lips, "Drink this."
He did as told.
He couldn't taste anything, and wasn't sure if that was his dry mouth, or if something was actually wrong, but still the liquid, whatever it was, was cool and soothing, easing the cracked dryness of his mouth and throat.
Sitting up was so much effort.
He felt like he was crawling up hill dragging 200 lbs of dead weight behind him. It was then that his spine made the executive decision to quit.
He couldn't blame it.
He slumped backwards, and the voices around him rose in a light frenzy.
"Woah woah."
"Someone keep hold of him."
"Hold him up."
"Make sure he doesn't strain his neck."
"Hold his head up."
And they did, all of that. The bed was readjusted so he could lean back though someone kept a hand on him to make sure he didn't slide over. Something, squishy and rolled into a tight cylinder was placed behind his neck to stabilize it upright.
This felt a little better, at least he didn't have to use his core muscles.
"Here drink some more."
He was more than eager to do so, and when the drink touched his lips, this time his tongue was wet enough to actually taste what they were giving him. It was cool and cold, which was a plus, but it was also mildly sweet and a little bit salty, not all together unpleasant, not that that was right at the top of his list of priorities at the moment.
"This is a horrible idea."
Ah Krill was here, he would have recognized the sound of dissatisfaction anywhere.
"What other options do we have?"
"Anything but this, this ISN"T an option, he's sick. Potentially dying and you want to do WHAT?"
"he's the only person we know who can manage this."
"LOOK AT HIM!"
There was silence for a long moment.
Adam blinked, taking another sip of the.... Flavor water.... Either he hadn't tasted this drink before, or his brain was currently too stupid to identify what it was. His guess was for the latter. Wasn't he kind of an idiot already, and no that wasn't trying to be pitiful or pathetic or anything, he seriously did wonder about that sometimes. Compared to krill and Sunny he was like, way average. Of course he had finished flight academy which included orbital mechanics at the top of his class, but that wasn't because he was gifted or anything, it was because he worked and studied the hardest while everyone ese was screwing off.
He wouldn't call himself smart, just determined, and now that his brain was reduced in operating capacity and he didn't have the strength to be determined, thinking was just out of the question.
He took another sip of the.... Liquid.
That sounded kind of suspicious calling it "The Liquid."
Ew
It also had really awkward connotations that he really didn't like.
He would have to name it something else.
Hospital juice?
No that sounded even worse.
Ah health Potion.
That would work for now.
The voices around him continued to argue, but he went on to drain the rest of (health potion) and by the time he was done, he was staring to understand what words meant again.
Someone, or soemthing that looked like a blob monster leaned over him, looking at him through a big reflective eye in the middle of it's face.... An eye that had a face inside....
Wait no.
No no, suddenly the world around him started to make sense. This was a hospital room, he was sick, the liquid.... Well he still didn't know what that was, but these people were doctors wearing HAZMAT suits because he was sick with something really bad and really contagious.
"There he is."
"Looks like he's coming around."
One of the people sat down next to him, and rested a glove on his arm. It was a cold and impersonal thing, but it still made him feel a little better, "Getting your color back I see."
He managed a weak smile, "Katie?"
She touched his cheek gently with her glove, "Yeah, its me." He could hear the smile in her voice, though it was also worried, "how are you-"
"How are you feeling?" He turned his head to see another figure floating over him.
"Krill?"
"That didn't answer my question."
Hm, good to know his old friend was as acerbic as ever, oh acerbic, that was a four-dollar word. His brain was readjusting to the thinking part of being human.
"Everything hurts, weak, tired, slow, but otherwise ok."
"So no changes on that last one." Katie said trying to be lighthearted but missing the mark entirely when her voice cracked slightly. He still smiled to try and make her feel better.
"What's going on."
"Soemthing stupid!" Krill announced loudly, and very deliberately.
Behind him a group of other doctors stepped up, one of them looking annoyed through his face mask, though Adam was having trouble seeing past the glare
"Nothing we wouldn't do if we weren't desperate. We need your help."
Krill turned on them brandishing an arm like he was going to beat someone despite his size, "I told you not to say that! Of course, he's going to say yes, Adam has a long history of saying yes to stupid things when he's injured!"
Adam would have argued if that wasn't a completely accurate assessment.
Steel eye proved that.
"I want to help." He said
Krill turned to glower at him, and he was sure that he would have hit him if it wasn't or him being sick.
Katie turned to look at him, her expression pained, "maybe you should wait to hear what's going on?"
He waited politely.
One of the doctors sat down next to him nudging Krill out of the way much to krill's annoyance. He took Adam's IV and injected something, which Adam watched trail into the solution as an off white fluid, "We think we have found a solution to the disease. The lumin and the Mikes are immune to whatever It is, and we think by implanting some of their DNA into a vaccine of some sort we can camouflage ourselves against it, The only problem is that option is only going to work on you right now as you're the only one with active adaptid DNA, if we were going to do this for everyone else we would need DNA from the source. We can't take it from you because the DNA rewrote itself to interact better with your body and isn't technically adaptid DNA anymore. Which means...."
Adam knew what they were suggesting.
"You need me to talk them into letting us sample their DNA?"
"Yes."
Well that was gong to be a problem. The adaptids had pulled away from the GA for just such a reason, as their DNA had been harvested to create hybrids.
That was not good.
"You're the only one that can talk them into it, and likely the only one that they won't kill on sight."
Adam knew they were right.
"This is a horrible plan."
That was Krill interjecting his two scene.
"As his primary care physician I will not allow it."
Adam turned his head to look at Krill, already feeling bad for what he was about to do, "Than.... I demand a different doctor." His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper past his aching chest.
Krill looked stunned.
Adam turned his head towards the other doctor, "I would help you, but I can barely move."
"Don't worry, we have soemthing for that."
***
The doctor's reassurances had done nothing to help him not worry. In fact, it had honestly made him more concerned than he had been before.
He felt bad as they transferred him to a mobile hazmat unit and then rolled him past doctor Krill and doctor Katie. He reached out a hand towards them fingers touching clear plastic, "I'm sorry." He said, looking past the face mask Into Krill's face, he could see that the little alien was angry, but not surprised.
He had seen this coming
Adam hoped that meant they could still be friends.
If he survived of course.
Both Katie and krill insisted on coming with the others as Adam was rolled through the facility and loaded onto a shuttle transport. The lights inside the cargo of the transport were dim and the doctors were forced to sit on the uncomfortable cramped seats provided in the cargo bay rather than the main seating area as his pod was too big to fit anywhere else. Whatever they had injected him with was.... Working?
Maybe?
It was too early to tell.
There was less pain at least, and that allowed him a few hours of uninterrupted sleep unplagued by pain and nightmares. When he woke up, there was an entire unit of marines inside the compartment. He knew some of them from the ship, though they weren't Alpha team. Two of them worked to haul a massive silver case into the room and set it down on the floor with aloud thud. The other marines adjusted their weapons.
A DECOM chamber had been set up sometime when he was sleeping, and he watched all of this through two layers of clear plastic.
From there four doctors were forced to lift the metallic case and step through the DECOM shroud and into the chamber.
The case was set on the floor beside his cot, and he immediately recognized it.
As the silver case that was supposed to be secured under his bed back on the ship.
His bubble hissed open, and they helped him roll onto his stomach, face pressed against the damp sheets.
He heard the case pop open and then felt the cold prickle and sudden whirr as the iron eye implant latched itself into the ports at the base of his skull, and then clicked into place down the length of his spine.
He heard one of the marines mutter something nervously under their breath.
"That's not disturbing at all.
Other pieces of iron eye armor latched themselves into place until he lay there, comprised of squishy human at the center, and mechanical exo skeleton everywhere else.
This time he was able to sit up on his own, as his weak body sent signals to the stronger iron eye components.
One of the doctors offered him his mechanical eye, and he slotted it into place despite the pain radiating from his throbbing eye socket. He blinked once to settle the eye into place watching as the Tesraki company logo blinked n in his vision before the eye started up its systems, immediately connecting to the iron eye suit.
He ran a systems update, and then an automatic calibration as the iron eye suit stretched, interacting with his body and sending information back and fourth to each other. Each joint in his body flexed in its full range of motion.
It was a good thing the iron eye suit was holding him up or he would have fallen face first onto the deck.
When the calibration was over, he stood and walked around the cot to where the case sat. The doctors pulled back in alarm. Seeing someone operating in iron eye armor was disturbing to some people.
He crouched down over the unit, and began slotting on his armor with the help of the braver doctors.
Each piece fit snugly onto a piece of his exo skeleton. The armor would protect him, but also act as a HAZMAT barrier between him and the non-infected.
He reached up with one last motion and slotted his helmet onto his head. The neck joint met the base of the helmet with a click and a his, and his suit pressurized from the inside as the life support systems turned on, filtering the air and keeping his contamination inside the suit.
He turned to the scientists.
On any other day he would have retracted the face plate, but now, it was for their safety.
His body trembled and his eyes drooped.
In the background, the iron eye suit took control of most of his physical systems. Interfacing with his mechanical eye, the sensor systems on the Iron eye unit displayed images of their surroundings directly onto his visual cortex, so he allowed his eyes to droop and then close.
His mechanical eye remained active, displaying visual information from the suit's sensors.
He felt his core muscles sag again, but was pulled upright as the Iron eye spine, and arm segments around his torso held him upright.
The suit had never been given this much freedom to operate and behaved more like a robot than it did a human.
Feeling its enviornment with sensors and creating a 3d map of the entire ship as it compiled all of its data together.
If adam knew the suit could do that before.....
"Are you ready to go admiral?"
"Yes." He said
"This isn't right." Krill protested
"Adam are you sure." Katie was saying.
Adam would have laughed but he was too tired, "This is what I do isn't it."
Despite being phrased like a question.
It was not a question.
This IS what he did.