If Cameron had thought his initial journey through the subconscious mind had been a shock, then his return to the waking world was nothing short of a living nightmare. In the blink of an eye, the serene star-filled ocean of black was replaced with industrial darkness of a cockpit turned coffin. Red-hot pain ratcheted through his body causing him to scream as the pungent stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Blood leaked from his mouth, it's coppery tang still warm and unwanted, assaulting his senses in the most extreme sense of the word.
"HELP!" He cried out, raspy and desperate as his throat ached with protest, feeling as if he'd spent a day swallowing knives, "PLEASE! HELP!"
He could feel the heat coming off the charred skin of his abdomen and lower back as it filled the small space with a foul odor that caused him to gag and cough. But all of that paled in comparison to the torrent of agony that came from each of his uplink threads. They were bulged and cracked, depressed into his flesh, tearing away from the upper layer of skin and pushing awkwardly into his broken bones.
In a fair and just world... he shouldn't have been alive, and as he lay there wallowing in agony, choking on the fumes of his burning body... he wished that he wasn't.
Suddenly, a blast of cold air hit his back as the rear hatch opened, exposing him to the outside world and subjecting his ringing ears to a pained, blood-curdling scream.
"Cameron!" Aurora cried, likely the first to get a good look at his back and the trauma it struggled to barely contain.
"By the stars, no," Sybil gasped, her tone sounding choked and heavy with emotion.
"Holy shit," Logan said, barely loud enough for Cameron to hear before he fell into a more commanding voice as he ordered the others who were likely too shocked or too stricken with grief to do anything for themselves.
"Aurora, clear out of the way and grab the stretcher from the medical bay," He heard Logan bark out, "Sybil, go help, activate the medical drone while you're in there. I don't give a fuck who you are, if you're on my ship, you're gonna help. Marcus, Alistair, help me get him de-threaded and out of this fucking machine. Let's move!"
With multiple voices in the affirmative, Cameron felt pairs of hands descend on him from behind. He cried and whimpered with every glancing touch or gentle manipulation of the thread jacks still embedded into his skin. The burning fire of pain escalated to a raging inferno that caused him to seize and twitch as his muscles contracted and squeezed, like his body was trying to force his bone back into their proper positions.
"Gah! F-Fuck!" He said through clenched teeth as one by one, the jacks were removed from the damaged uplink threads on his legs and back.
"I know it hurts kid," Logan said, his attempt of a calming tone fighting for dominance over the urgency and anxiety that lay just under the surface, "We're nearly done. I promise."
"N-No rush...T-take your time," Cameron panted out through clenched teeth, struggling to form words at this point, but unable to pass up a chance at sarcasm. As another round of intense agony loomed, Cameron's ears picked up the clattering echo of footfalls and out of breath gasping before hearing Aurora's voice somewhere behind him.
"I got the stretcher!" She said, "And Sybil is turning the medical drone on now. What more can I do?"
"Nothing right now," Logan said, still focused on extracting the thread jacks from Cameron's right shoulder, "I just need you to stay out of the way while we get him out of this thing."
"B-But I-" She started to protest, but Logan cut her off, his words sounding harsh and authoritative despite the young mechanic's good intentions.
"Aurora now is not the fucking time to argue with me!" He barked, "I understand you want to help, but all I need you to do is stay out of the way. Now move!"
"Y-Yes sir," she said, sounding hurt but understanding of the situation.
"Alright buddy," Logan said softly, his voice struggling to remain calm and reassuring, "We're on the last part now. Just need to remove the neural uplink and we'll get ya out of here okay? Luckily that thread isn't compromised so it's a simple twist and pull. I'd say you're going to feel a sharp pain, but something tells me that's the least of your worries right now. You ready?"
Before Cameron could muster a response, he felt a sharp yank at the nape of his neck, causing all the air to leave his lungs, making him gasp and heave. His body undulated and twitched, sending a fresh wave of pain washing over his body as its stillness was disturbed, reminding it how broken it was. His mouth opened wide in a silent scream, battling his instinctual need to take in air.
"He's seizing up!" He heard Marcus call out just as his back arched and went rigid, tightening like a coiled spring.
Another round of fresh screams erupted from his mouth, no longer able to deal silently with this ordeal.
"Don't just stand there!" Logan snapped, "Help me get him out!"
"What about his arms?" Alistair protested, "They're gonna break with how hard he's flexing."
"He survived halfway through a shutdown sequence, Alistair," Logan said, reaching up and clasping Cameron's right bicep with a firm hand, "Those bones are already little more than dust at this point, now stop talking and get ready to pull!"
Cameron felt another hand, this one unfamiliar to him and likely belonging to Alistair clasping his left bicep as two arms snaked around his waist.
"Ready?" Logan asked,
"Ready," Alistair and Marcus confirmed in unison.
"One... two... three... PULL!"
This was the breaking point for Cameron. The action that tipped the scale and sent his pain skyrocketing into another reality, causing his brain to throw in the towel. In the end, he only got to experience the liberation of the outside world for a few seconds, as cool air bathed his skin in its soothing embrace before the lights went out one more time and everything faded to black.
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***
Logan strained as he, Marcus, and Alistair yanked Cameron free from the Headsman's cockpit. He grimaced as his hand clamped down hard on the kid's arm and felt not the strong sinewy musculature of a man in his athletic prime, but instead the gravelly, squishy texture of an appendage missing any internal support. Muscles were ripped and deformed, bones were cracked into chunks and protruded out awkwardly beneath blood soaked skin. It was enough to make his stomach turn and he had to fight the urge to vomit more than once as they carried Cameron's body to the stretcher. Laying the limp, squishy body down, the three men look at each other silently before taking their positions around the litter and carting it down the hall toward the medical bay.
"He's going to need to be re-threaded," Alistair said, after the long stretch of silence became too much for him.
"He's going to need a lot of things, Mr. Kincaid," Marcus said, sounding more like a protective growl than an actual response, "Re-threading being the least in terms of priority."
"I was just saying that-"
"I know what you were saying Mr. Kincaid," Marcus shot back, "What I am saying however, is that re-threading him is the least of my concerns right now. Regardless of you or Mr. Rake's assertions in the coming future, I'd like to focus on making sure Cam can even walk, before considering the option of having him pilot anything again."
"And just who the hell are you?" Alistair snapped back, "The kids relinquished into Logan's care right? Don't tell me he brought his daddy along to make sure he doesn't get hurt."
"Alistair," Logan spoke up, calm and soft as he was discussing the weather, "I'd stop talking if I were you. Unlike me, Marcus doesn't pull his punches."
There was a sharp intake of breath from Alistair before he thought better, choosing to continue the rest of the journey towards the medical bay in silence. Said journey didn't last much longer however as a set of double doors whooshed open bathing the dimly lit corridor in a sterile white glow. A shadow darkened the doorway for a moment before Sybil entered the hallway, moving like she was on a mission, until she laid eyes on three men carrying an unconscious Cameron, causing her to stop in her tracks.
"Oh," She said, "I was jus-"
"Yeah yeah," Logan said, "Now move." Pushing past her with Marcus and Alistair in tow, he hauled the stretcher up onto a metal slab table situated in the center of a room where a medical drone hovered overhead. Rolling the unconscious kid on his side long enough to slide the stretcher out from underneath him, Logan backed away, speaking to the drone as he did so.
"Begin critical triage and care protocol" He said, waiting a few moments as the drone hovered in place, lights blinking rapidly as it listened to the command. Finally a line began to form around the middle spherical drone, getting more and more pronounced before, with a pressurized hiss, the top half flipped open, revealing a series lasers, drills, and other such instruments. It descended down, hovering a few inches above Cameron's torso, as a red beam from the bottom of the drone scanned his body. After a few seconds, the beam of light retracted and a slot on the side opened up, revealing an oxygen mask that snaked its way down and positioned itself onto his face. As the gasses began to flow, the drone spoke.
"Initial scans complete," It said in a monotone feminine voice, "Analysis shows 239 compound and 78 inline fractures respectively. Two punctures identified in the Parietal Pleura of the right lung. Internal bleeding detected in pancreas, large intestine, small intestine, cranium, and right kidney. Estimated time of initial triage and care procedure is nineteen hours and thirty-seven minutes. Chances of success without patient expiration is forty-three percent. Do you wish to proceed with the protocol?"
"Confirm," Logan said, turning and walking out of the medical bay as the sounds of skin being sliced open filled the room. He winced, closing his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear it. It's not that he wasn't willing to admit he cared more for the kid than he let on. Hell, everyone could see that. And it was because of that care that he needed to stay focused. Because the fact that, here his prodigy was, fighting for his life on the operating table, while the bastard that put him there was still breathing, was a travesty he wasn't about to let go unchecked.
The pressurized doors slid open with an automatic hiss, and Logan found himself staring face to face with Aurora, Sybil, and Marcus, standing in a huddle, looking exhausted and anxious all at once. Their heads snapped towards Logan as he exited the bay, not giving him a second to breath before they began to bombard him with a litany of questions.
"How is he?" Sybil asked, arms crossed tightly to her chest.
"Is he gonna be okay?!" Aurora whimpered out, eyes looking watery and bloodshot.
"What's our next move?" Marcus growled out through gritted teeth, like he wanted to leave the ship and find the person who did this all by himself.
All three grew louder in their attempts to talk over each other, quickly straining the last thin shreds of patience Logan had left until, finally, he'd had enough.
"QUIET!" He bellowed, raising a fist high into the air and slamming it against the wall hard enough to leave a noticeable dent on its polished metal surface. The other voices cut off in an instant, as the echoing bang from his assault of the Fenris's interior design caused Aurora and Sybil to reflexively jump. In the end, Logan got his wish as a grave silence filled the air, save for his own heavy breathing.
"I don't know, alright?!" He said after a few tense moments of silence. It felt wrong to say something like that. He could feel his stomach twist in knots in revulsion, feeling as if it were some sort of betrayal to even consider a reality in which the kid didn't survive. But Logan didn't want to lie to himself, didn't want to lie to the people that depended on him. So with a shuddering breath, he bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight, and repeated his statement, barely at a whisper, but carrying all the weight as if he'd shouted it in their ears.
"I... I don't know."