The miner and the medic

The miner and the medic

He had told her his name was Devo. Most miners died before their 20th birthday. Devo was in bad shape; red oil flowed freely from his arm implant. Lena reached into her bag and extracted a fat little jar with a screw top. She pulled her patient under the leaf of giant bamboo. It would have to do. Hopefully, the drones wouldn’t spot them.

“Hold still,” she said.

“How can a metallic implant hurt as much as my flesh?” he said, grimacing.

“They connect it directly to your brain,” she said. Devo knew that already, but no one understood until they got hurt.

“Can you fix it?” he asked.

The jar contained a slimy paste. Lena dabbed the implant and localized the cut.

“It’s the hose,” she said. “But it’s cut lengthwise.”

She applied paste along with the cut. It provided a temporary seal. She leaned back to examine her work and evaluated Devo’s chances of survival to 50% after 24 hours.

“Go, girl! You fixed me.”

“It’s only temporary. You have to go to the medic building.”, she said.

“The medic building! It’s too far. I won’t last in the open.”

Devo sat heavily on the ground, his adrenaline spent.

Lena closed her bag. She grabbed her heart locket and prepared to phase back to her base.

“Good luck,” she said and squeezed.

Nothing happened.

She tried again.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” said Devo with a grin. “We both have to walk back. Unless you want to get on the transport.”

“The transports are only for healthy miners,” she said in a monotone voice. He knew that too. If you got hurt mining, you were on your own. There were hundreds of healthy miners waiting on the sidelines.

Lena looked up; the bamboo leaf ran longitudinally, a flimsy shield against the drones. How had she thought it sufficient a moment ago?

“Come on!” she urged. “We need to find better cover.”

She pointed to a palm grove about a hundred meters away.

“Protection,” she said.

They ran. As a miner, Devo had scored highest in Strength and Vitality. Lena couldn’t keep up with him. He was already pulling palms together when she finally arrived.

Now that they were safe, Lena slid the locket above her neck and examined it.

“If you fix it, could you transport both of us back?” asked Devo.

Transporting a live miner could result in the death penalty. You only brought back implants from corpses. At the very least, she would spend the rest of her life doing forced labor in the poisoned fields.

“Sure,” she said.

Her hands worked fast. As a medic, she had scored highest on dexterity and intelligence.

“What are you doing?” he asked every two minutes.

She finished dismantling the locket. The center chip was fried. She needed to find a miner’s corpse; their brain implant contained the spare part she needed. She slanted her eyes to Devo’s injury. She gathered the pieces.

“I can’t fix it,” she said.

He grunted in disappointment.

“You have a better chance of reaching the medicals without me,” she said.

He nodded. He had also scored high on self-preservation, Lena guessed.

“Let me put another layer of sealant on the crack.”

He extended his arm, but his eyes examined the jungle. He was plotting a course.

“There,” she said. “Run for it.”

The explosive applied to his implant tore him apart. His cries of agony attracted a handful of drones who ripped him to pieces while Lena waited, buried under palm leaves.

The brass gave her a promotion for using the miner to obtain the chip she needed. Many admired her ingenuity. As a team leader, she added a spare brain to every medic’s base kit.

She was never able to sleep soundly again. She had stomach cancer, which melted sixty pounds of muscles from her body. Her youngest son became a miner.

THE END