GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 30: Mars

The warm, heavy blanket of sleep drew back and he was dragged into the light. Mars didn't want to be awake. He wanted to tunnel back into the darkness and stay there ... forever, maybe. Without pain or fear or worry of what would come next.

But sleep didn't come so easily as it went, and by the time he realized it was receding, it had completely abandoned him. The room moved around him. Blue curtains, beige walls. Six bodies—no, three—two positioned on his right side and one on his left. Dylan and Bek and ... it took Mars several seconds to recognize the third person.

Sekam.

She smelled different. Wrong. Her scent had been stripped away from her and the normal emotions that she let seep from her pores were absent. In their place, restlessness. Restlessness, discomfort, and a tinge of fear. Then, as Bek welcomed him back, relief.

"You're okay," she said, chasing the words out with a gust of air.

Mars wasn't so sure, but he wasn't about to argue with her. "What happened to you?"

After Bek translated, Sekam grimaced. "Dylan made me shower." She rubbed the back of her neck, fingers grasping at the tips of her now much shorter hair.

He offered her as solemn a nod as he could manage. His neck was stiff and his limbs were slow to respond, not doing quite what he wanted them to. "I understand. I don't like getting wet either." Unlike Dylan, when Bek spoke for him, she spoke word-for-word. Having a voice again felt impossibly good, after how stubborn Dylan had been in the last few days.

Sekam looked like she was going to protest, then thought better of it. "Should we wake Dylan up?" She leaned forward, halfway out of her seat when Bek stopped her.

"No, let them sleep. They've had a long couple of days."

They didn't sleep long. A few hours, maybe, before they startled awake, muttering something to themself that Mars couldn't make out. Their muttering stopped abruptly when they realized that Mars was awake. They launched out of their chair and into the bed, wrapping their arms tight around him.

"Ow," Mars tried to say, but they were too close to see.

The hug lasted another fifteen stiff, painful seconds, until Mars gently pushed them off. "I'm so glad you're awake," they said, words buzzing with excitement. "How do you feel?"

Mars hesitated to answer. He didn't want to tell them the truth; he didn't want to tell them that he still felt that same hunger so deep in his core it felt more a part of him than his own rational thought. Still, he said, "Not good."

"Well"—Dylan rubbed their eyes clean of the last remnants of sleep on their lashes—"this will buy you a little more time, at least." They rubbed again. Maybe it wasn't sleep they were trying to get rid of.

"A little more?" Bek asked. "Why only a little more? You should be healthy now, unless you come into contact with the green again."

Dylan shook their head and answered for him. "Mars's code is ... it's corrupted. There was someone in the lab that injected a virus into it. Things will get a lot worse a lot faster now, with or without the green."

"Can't you fix it?" Sekam demanded, looking between them. Her eyes found their final rest on Dylan. She was afraid. Desperate. Mars hoped she wouldn't try to hurt them. It wasn't their fault that they couldn't fix his code. It wasn't their fault that they didn't have the equipment.

But they didn't seem concerned. They shrugged, as nonchalantly as ever. "I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" I just need to get a hold of one of their tablets." They pulled their lower lip between their teeth, rolling it as they thought. "Yeah. One of their tablets. And, ideally, one of the cables that goes with it."

"Where do we get one?" Sekam leaned forwards, feet already planted on the floor, already prepared to take off and get Dylan just what they needed to fix him.

If only it were that easy. "ORCTech," Mars said.

At the same time, they said, "That means ... that means that we need to get back into ORCTech. Into the facility that we broke Mars out of. As far as I know, they're the only ones with tech we know works. I'm not gonna risk Mars's life on anything else."

Sekam's pulse spiked. "Back to the facility?"

Dylan nodded slowly. "Yeah. Back to the facility. If you don't think you can get back in, I guess ... I guess I could try."

"No," she said abruptly. "No. I'll go back. I can get in. I can do it."

"I'll go with you," Bek said. "I have the keys, remember. And it's about time I see Melissa again."

Melissa? Understanding was right on the fringes of his mind. Then, he remembered. Melissa Jones. The doctor, Reddington, had said that Bek had helped create him. The memory sank its teeth deep into him. "How do you know Jones?"

Pain corrupted her determination. "It's ... it's a long story, sweetie."

That was good. That meant that she and Sekam would stay longer, that they wouldn't go back to the facility. "You can tell me," he said. "I have time."

"You don't have time," Dylan disagreed. "We need to fix your code ASAP." Why were they so eager to send Bek and Sekam away? Mars didn't like it.

"Please stay." He grabbed Bek's wrist; she was the closest to him.

She smiled a sad smile and gently tugged her hand free. "I know, sweetie. I know. I'll tell you when I get back, okay?"

"What if you don't come back?"

"Sekam is going to keep me safe. She's going to keep both of us safe." Bek glanced back at her. "Isn't that right, Sekam?"

"I'll make sure we're both safe." Life surged back into Sekam. Her restless discomfort vanished. Dylan had given her a purpose, and an excuse to leave the hospital, Mars suspected.

Mars knew he wasn't worth both their lives; he was barely worth his own. He was a failed lab experiment and had always been a failed lab experiment—and he was okay with that. He didn't need to be fixed, he just wanted to make sure that everyone else was okay ... and they weren't going to be. They were putting themselves in danger to 'save' him.

"I don't want you to go," he tried.

Bek translated for Sekam, then said, "We need to." She used the same calm, firm voice. Like she knew better. They all thought they knew better than he did.

"I need to keep you alive." She stepped closer and leaned down, wrapping him a tender hug that felt so unlike her. "We'll be back soon," she promised him, and gave him as gentle a squeeze as she could manage.

Mars wanted to believe her, but he was afraid for her. "Please come back."

"We will," Bek said again. Sekam tried a comforting smile, but she looked about as uncertain as Mars felt, and she didn't try to hide it from him.