The Gender End (The Gender Game #7)

“I have doubts about the assertion that she is an outsider, Marcus,” Raevyn said bluntly, folding her arms across her chest. “She could be part of an undoc cell trying to leave the tower.”

The older man’s smile broadened as he stepped around her, drawing closer to me. His eyes were a dark green, and crystal clear. “Well, young alien woman, what’s it to be—alien or undoc?” He sat down on a stool and rolled over a few feet, coming to a stop beside me. “Personally, I’m hoping for alien.”

Immediately his eyes went to my cast. He examined it closely, a wild grin on his face. “My father told me this was how our great ancestors healed broken bones, but never in a million years did I think anyone would still implement it. Isn’t that nifty!”

“Wait, you’re saying that was the technique for setting bones in the past?”

Sage nodded at Raevyn’s question, rotating my arm so he could examine the cast further. “Indeed. If she is an undoc, someone has access to old medical books or journals that are extremely out of date. I want them.”

I smiled, unable to stop myself at the hungry quality to Sage’s voice as he laid claim to some imagined medical documents. He pressed something to my finger, scraping gently, and then moved it away, inserting the narrow device into a port in the wall. The panel glowed white, and then faded. He leaned forward and tapped the screen, and the next thing I knew it showed blood cells, flowing their way through my body. He tapped another button, and I saw a double helix sitting there, sections of it automatically lighting up with flashing text. Looking down at my finger, I realized he must have taken a sample of my genetic material.

“Well, forget about the texts. She’s definitely not from around here!” Sage announced with a clap of his hands. “We’ve got ourselves a genuine alien girl!”

I knew the way he kept calling me “alien” should’ve bothered me, but for some reason, it was hard to be upset by the cheerfully pleasant man. His eyes twinkled like he was in on some joke that he wasn’t sharing with the rest of us, and I found it both enigmatic and intriguing. Maybe he would be someone I could glean some answers from.

“That’s not possible,” Raevyn exclaimed, taking a step forward. “Nothing can sustain life outside this tower. The ecological reports alone tell us that!”

“Hey, that’s what our people thought too,” I said. “You’re the first sign of human life we’ve ever encountered.”

“Young lady,” said Knight Commander Devon, his gaze falling squarely on me. “You will tell us where you come from, and how your flying… gyroship works.”

I swallowed and looked around the room. “Um, sorry, but I’m not so sure I want to tell you that, just like I’m sure you don’t want to tell me if I called it on the uniforms.” I leaned over and stage-whispered to Sage, “But I totally called it on the uniforms.” The old man gave a bark of laughter, his shoulders shaking, and he looked around the room, grinning broadly.

“She’s funny,” he announced cheerfully to the otherwise somber room. I couldn’t help but smile as he tugged my cast over.

I shifted a little as Devon crossed his arms, his eyes disapproving and dark, and I sighed. “Look, all jokes aside—and let me have that, I’m a little nervous—I have every reason to consider you all as big of a risk to my people as you are assuming I am to yours. This is the first contact any one of my people have had with anyone in The Outlands, and I’m also in uncertain waters. I definitely didn’t think I’d be meeting other humans this morning.”

“The Outlands? Is that what you call the Wastes?” asked Raevyn.

I opened my mouth to reply, just as Devon asked, “So your people have explored The Outlands before?” and I nodded.

“Yes to both questions. Parties have gone out… They haven’t come back. No one ever comes back from The Outlands. But honestly, our coming out here wasn’t even intentional. Our ship was damaged, and we’re… we’re just trying to make our way back home.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough, Miss…”

“Bates,” Jathem supplied for Raevyn, and she nodded absentmindedly.

“Bates. We have no guarantee that you won’t return with your people in a whole fleet of those gyroships with who knows how many weapons. Frankly, for you to think we can allow you to—”

There was a sharp crack, cutting Raevyn off, and I looked down to see CS Sage pulling the sides of my cast open. Immediately I felt the urge to gag as the smell of unwashed, dirty skin and old sweat wafted out from under the cast, my face flushing with embarrassment.

Sage wrinkled his nose, clucked his tongue, and pulled a small silver spray can from his pocket, spraying it all over my arm. The mist was cool, but not uncomfortable, and my skin began to tingle as the smell all but evaporated. He took a tissue out of a box and wiped at the skin, the white material quickly turning black, and my blush deepened.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and he shook his head.

“Not at all, but that is why these are more primitive methods. Your skin can mold or get an infection or irritation. I bet it has been itching a lot too.”

“It really has,” I replied, thinking of all the times I had almost lost a pen trying to use it to scratch under the cast.

“Not surprising,” he said, tossing the tissue aside. My arm continued to tingle, the aching pain of the break fading away, and I gave it a considering look.

“Is that it?”

“Ha! Hardly. I think we can do a bit better than that.”

He reached up and pressed something on the screen. Immediately a small section of the wall opened, and a thick plastic sheet came out, feeding through some kind of dispenser. Sage let it run and then tore it off. Indicating for me to lift my arm, he carefully wrapped the plastic sheet around it, looping it around and pressing it down against itself. He held it in place for just a moment, and then let go.

Amazingly, the plastic stayed in place, and I almost sagged in relief at how much better my arm suddenly felt. What was more interesting were two things: the first was that it was incredibly lightweight and left my hand completely free and useable. The second thing I noticed was that the plastic was actually comprised of dozens of hexagonal shapes, seemingly filled with some sort of gelatinous substance.

My hand still had stitches in it from where Tabitha had driven a knife through it, but the skin was almost completely healed, and CS Sage was already snipping and pulling the stitches out—after giving the area a quick blast with that silver canister again. I gasped involuntarily as he yanked at the thread, but the expected pain didn’t come. Maybe the silver canister contained a pain reliever as well as a disinfectant? It seemed to do everything at once.