The heart monitor beeped somewhere above Caleb's head.
He opened his eyes to a white ceiling and a breathing tube wedged down his throat. Bleach burned his nose. Something moved behind his ribs, pressing outward until he held his breath.
It stopped moving. It did not go away.
Caleb tried to sit up. Hands caught his shoulders and forced him back onto the cot.
"Easy. Don't pull the tube."
He clawed at the sheet. They needed to open his chest. Whatever had come out of the Wallbiter was still in there.
Gus leaned over the rail. His disposal suit was gone, and a makeshift sling held his arm against a borrowed shirt. Dried blood marked the collar.
"Caleb." He gripped the rail with his good hand. "There was so much blood. I didn't see the gantry move."
Caleb tried to point at his chest. A medic caught his wrist.
"I'm sorry," Gus said. "I thought you were dead."
The tube gagged Caleb when he tried to answer. He turned his head, looking for someone who would let him explain.
A figure stood beyond the observation window. Its shoulders rose above the doorway behind it. Two purple points shone through the glass where its eyes should have been.
The monitor changed to one long tone.
Gus said his name again. A chemical cold spread through Caleb's veins, and the hands holding him down became harder to feel. The purple eyes stayed in the window until the room went dark.
***
Lavender had replaced the bleach when he woke again.
He swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw, but the tube was gone. Clean sheets covered him in a private room bigger than his apartment's kitchen.
Nell slept against the edge of the mattress, her face half buried in her crossed arms. Her scarred leather jacket had slipped off one shoulder. Beneath it, a dark-gray collar marked her as First Division.
"No," she mumbled. "The potatoes need to be thicker."
"Nell."
She jerked awake and wiped her mouth. For a moment she stared at him. Then she caught his forearm and breathed out.
"You're awake."
"Barely." He looked at the collar. "First Division?"
"We can talk about that later." She pulled her chair closer. "What happened at the depot?"
"A dead Kaiju got up."
She picked up a tablet. "The Guild report says the gantry collapsed. Your suit logs record a biological strike."
"A tendril came through my chest."
"I believe you. The wound and the telemetry agree. Tell me the rest."
Caleb told her about the crawlers and the crushed pistol. His emergency feed had brought no one from dispatch. A private viewer had offered a gift in exchange for his broadcast, then dropped a thermal machete and a stimulant through the skylight.
"The stim let me move," he said. "But I felt something take it. In my chest. Like it was pulling the heat out of the rest of me."
Nell looked down at the tablet.
"An Executive capsule costs millions. Nobody spends that on a disposal feed by accident."
"They bought the broadcast afterward. Closed the public channel. My distress beacon disappeared while I was still on the floor."
Her thumb stopped on the screen.
"And now I'm in this room," he said. "Who paid for it?"
"The buyer. Your hospital account is settled."
Caleb looked at the clean sheets again. Enough money to save him, enough to put him here, and no name attached to either payment.
"They also flagged your file as classified," Nell said. "Defense cyber-division tried to identify the account. They couldn't get through the ghost networks."
"Military cyber couldn't find one person?"
"A dozen layers between them and the buyer. Whoever arranged this can spend that money and restrict a military investigation."
Caleb put a hand over his bandages.
"Then get them to look at what's still in me."
Nell turned the tablet toward him.
"They already did. Deep-tissue MRI, thermal imaging, X-ray. No foreign body. No organism left in the wound."
He stared at the scan labels. "I can feel it."
"You were impaled. You're still feeling the injury."
"Something moved when I woke up."
"After sedation and a combat stimulant." She kept the tablet where he could see it. "I believe something attacked you. The scans say it didn't leave a monster behind."
He pushed against the gauze, bracing for broken bone to grind.
His chest expanded without a catch. The skin underneath was hot, but the pain he remembered from the concrete floor was gone. His wrist still ached where the crawler had bitten him.
He pressed harder.
Nell caught his hand. "Stop. You'll pull your stitches."
"My ribs don't hurt."
"The doctors gave you anesthetic."
"I tore a piece of bone out with the tendril. I could feel the hole every time I breathed."
"That is why you're in a hospital bed. Let the medicine do its job."
Caleb pulled his wrist free and swung his legs over the edge. He needed to know whether his chest could take his weight. He planted both feet on the tiles and stood.
"Caleb. Sit down."
His knees held. He put his hands against his ribs and took a full breath. The wall of muscle beneath the bandages felt firm. Heat came through the gauze into his palms.
"I shouldn't be able to do this."
Nell stood in front of him, close enough to catch him.
"You shouldn't be doing it."
His stomach cramped. He bent toward the mattress, trying to swallow the bile rising in his throat. It came up anyway.
Nell caught his shoulder as he vomited onto the floor. His knees went loose beneath him. She took his weight before his head could strike the tiles, but he could no longer help her lift him.
The heat behind his ribs faded. His stomach kept twisting as the room narrowed to the hand gripping his shoulder.
***
He woke alone at 10:14 p.m.
A glass of water sat on the tray. Under it was a postcard in Nell's hurried handwriting.
*Please stop doing dangerous stuff. A dungeon radar alarm went off four miles away. I should be back in a week or two. Please just rest.*
Caleb traced the last line with his thumb. Then he drank the water in small mouthfuls and lay back down.
Three days later, he sat on his rusted coil couch in the lower sector. His breath showed in the cold apartment. The hospital had sent him home with painkillers and instructions to avoid heavy work.
His Guild uniform hung over a chair beside the television.
On the screen, armored soldiers fired plasma rifles into a crater. An announcer promised money, sponsors, and a chance to serve.
"Runner trials open in one week for graduating seniors and freelance applicants. Every match will be broadcast to the world."
The picture changed to a stadium packed with people.
Caleb remembered the academy rappel tower. Rope burning through his gloves. His boots scraping the wall while he froze halfway down. Everyone below waiting for him to move.
He picked up the rent notice beneath the remote. The buyer had paid for the hospital. His apartment, the family debt, and his brother's oxygen still needed money every month.
He put the notice down and reached for the uniform.
"The bills won't pay themselves."
Outside, young applicants pushed past him on the cracked sidewalk. One was telling the others how much he would put into speed augments.
"Pass the trials and you're set. The sponsorship money is insane."
A palm-sized drone banked above Caleb and stopped. Its lens turned toward him. A purple light pulsed underneath it.
He remembered the figure at the hospital window.
The drone followed when he took another step. Caleb looked toward the testing facility beyond the transit rail. Nell had made it there. He pictured standing beside her in armor instead of cutting up whatever she left behind.
He had survived the depot. He could try the entrance again.
***
The Guild bay doors were open when he arrived, hours late for his shift.
Gus reached him first. He caught Caleb in a rough one-armed hug, then stepped back while the other workers crowded around them. Someone slapped his uninjured shoulder.
"You're actually standing," Gus said.
"So are you."
Gus glanced at his sling. "Most of me."
Vance came down from the supervisor's booth with a cigarette between his teeth. Caleb waited for the shouting, but the foreman stopped on the last stair.
"Treadwell. You spent over an hour down there with your chest open."
Caleb touched the scar through his jacket. "I heard."
He crossed to the desk and set down a folded Runner application.
Vance read the heading. His cigarette lowered.
"You're serious?"
"Trials are next week."
Gus stepped closer. "Those trials kill people, man."
"I know."
"You just got out of the hospital."
Caleb looked at his hands. The cuts across his palms had closed, but the skin still pulled when he made a fist.
"However I stayed alive, I did. I want to try again."
Vance looked from the application to the uniform Caleb was wearing. He took a slow drag and put the paper back on the desk.
"You don't get paid for shifts you miss."
"Fair."
"And don't expect me to hold the whole line while you play soldier."
Caleb folded the application and put it in his pocket. He still had a shift to finish. For the first time since coming home, he had something to do after it.