Free Some Fine Day by Kat Ross Page B

older guy, the one who voted against drowning me, is supervising the assembly of the LIDAR and other equipment, which they’re partially camouflaging under a pile of palm fronds. Everyone on the beach knows their assigned task, and the whole operation is smooth and efficient.
    Will pulls hard on the oars and we coast the last few yards into the shallows. Everyone stops working and stares as we cross the sand. It’s weird to walk on something that doesn’t move, like reverse seasickness. I keep my head high and meet their eyes until they look away, uncomfortable. Most do. Not all. The ones that don’t are the younger ones who think they’re tough.
    I wonder how many would even survive my last eight years of training.
    We follow a footpath through the forest until we reach a small clearing. The main camp must be someplace else, or else they just spread out in small groups. There’s a few people setting up a mess tent and digging pit latrines off to the side, but they don’t pay us much attention. On the way, I think hard about running. What stops me is the fact that we’re on an island. They’d hunt me down eventually. And I know nothing about surviving on the surface, where to find food or water.
    Will leads me to one of a group of plastic tarp structures. There’s a rusty cot with a blanket, and a table with a cracked water jug. There’s also a woman inside. She’s very tall and thin, and her skin is a blue-black color that almost glows. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top. Her head is shaved to the scalp. Nose straight and wide, with high cheekbones.
    She’s holding a tray of surgical instruments, which she sets down on the table.
    “This is my assistant, Lisa Gueye,” Will says. “Do you mind if she observes the procedure?”
    “Fine by me,” I say.
    Lisa smiles in a neutral way. Her teeth are crooked but clean.
    “Good,” Will says. “OK, I need you to get those clothes off.”
    I stare at him until he turns around, then lower the top half of my pajamas and lie face down on the cot.
    “This may hurt a little,” he murmurs. I hear the clank of stainless steel on metal. “Gauze, please.”
    Something wet and cold presses down between my shoulder blades.
    “Healing nicely. No redness or swelling. There’ll be a scar, but it’s not in a very visible location.”
    “Does it matter which one you start with?” Lisa asks.
    “Not really. We’ll go top down.”
    There’s a tug on my back, but it’s not particularly painful. More of a tickling sensation. The whole thing lasts about fifteen minutes.
    “All set,” Will says finally. “You’ll feel a bumpy ridge there, but it should flatten out in two to three months.”
    Unspoken is whether I’ll be around in two to three months. Or two to three hours.
    “Thanks,” I say. “It feels better.”
    “Just try not to rip it open,” Will says, not looking at me as he bags the dirty gauze. “We’re already running low on everything again.”
    “I’ll do my best,” I say, more lightly than I feel.
    Lisa leaves and Will moves to follow her, then stops and turns back. “I still think you’re a fool. But since I can’t talk you out of it, I’d advise you to kick him in the. . . you know. It’s your best chance. I’m really not in the mood to patch you up again. We’re out of painkillers entirely.”
    “Thanks for the pep talk,” I say. “But I don’t plan on needing your help. Bob might though.”
    I mumble the word “quack” under my breath and disguise it as a cough.
    Will seems on the verge of saying something else, and then two guys are outside the tent. I get up before they can tell me to and we walk back down the path to the beach. The children are gone but all the adults are there, at least a hundred people. I spot Bob right away. He’s squatting on the sand at the edge of the crowd, which has formed a rough semicircle. He’s staring into space and when we get closer, I realize he’s humming to himself. God knows what