“ReGen Pod?” I asked.
“ReGeneration Pod. Someone gravely injured goes in one of those. There’s more blue light, much more healing power than the wand.” She held it out for me and I took the small device.
“Can it heal cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Diabetes?”
“Yes. Almost everything that people die from on Earth can be cured.”
I hopped off the table, gripped the wand, paced. “Then why aren’t these on Earth? Millions could be saved! Suffering—” I thought of Wyatt and the long days he’d cried in his hospital bed asking his mommy to make the pain go away. I’d held his hand and begged the nurses to drug him, to help him. But that was almost worse. His eyes would be glassy and he couldn’t talk to me like a normal little boy. He was out of it, sleeping for so long I worried he might not wake up. Hot tears filled my eyes as I looked at this thing, not much bigger than my TV remote back home, and wanted to scream. “Why? It could help so many people.”
Rachel sighed, leaned her hip against the side of the exam table. “True, but Earth isn’t ready for this technology. Your presence here, your story is proof of that.”
“Me?”
Rachel raised both brows. “It can heal, but it can also kill. Cause cancer. Create illness. Kill people and it would all look a hundred percent natural. Heart attack. Cancer. Strokes. Liver failure. Dementia. They could fry someone’s brain just to make sure they forgot whatever it was they needed their victim to forget.” She watched me for long minutes as I squirmed. “Do you honestly believe the governments and corporations on Earth would use this for good?”
I was a journalist. I wasn’t exactly a globe-trotting war reporter, but I wasn’t one to wear rose-colored glasses all the time either. As a single mother I didn’t have that luxury. No, the news fed a steady diet of corruption and war. Murder and terrorism. Rachel was right. The Coalition was right. But that just made my heart burn in my chest. Everyone would suffer because the greedy and corrupt, the evil on Earth had not been eradicated or controlled.
“Humans truly are savages.”
Rachel sighed, and the sound nearly broke my heart. “Yes. We really are.”
“But I need it. So many people are suffering. Can’t you sneak one back and not tell anyone? Give it to someone trustworthy? I’d never tell a soul, I swear. I’d destroy it as soon as I was—” I thought of Wyatt and waved the wand in the air. “This? This little thing could save my—”
I pinched my lips together, turned away. Tears spilled down my cheeks and I frantically wiped them away. I’d said too much, but my emotions, my need to heal Wyatt made me fierce. I’d do anything for him, even beg this human woman who didn’t like me much for help.
“Save your what, Lindsey?” Rachel asked. For the first time, her voice was missing that hard edge.
I didn’t reply.
“You’re not an investigative journalist. No offense, but they’re sneaky. Ruthless. Mean. Hard.” Her hand came to rest on top of my shoulder and the gentle touch made me jump as she continued. “You’re none of those things. I mean, you were discovered at the fighting pits. The entire base is talking about the way Kiel fought for you. No one trying to be sneaky gets exposed like that.”
I laughed at my own stupidity. “Well, I am a journalist and a blogger. It’s just that I usually don’t work on this kind of story. I’m more the hospital benefit, parenting articles kind of writer. So, yeah, I’m pretty bad at being a spy.”
“Why are you really here?”
I turned to face her. “To get the truth. To find out what happened to Captain Brooks. His uncle is a Senator. He was from a rich, powerful family that thinks the Coalition is lying about what’s going on up here. So, they sent me. That is the truth.”
Rachel’s eyes were serious, but not hard. “I was a whistleblower. I discovered the CEO of the company I worked for was putting out bad medicine and it was killing people. I reported it and because of that, was set up to take the fall. I was convicted to twenty-five years in jail.”
My mouth fell open. Holy shit.
“I chose to be an Interstellar Bride and was matched and sent here instead of going to prison. I found the truth, shared it and it was used against me. They made me the patsy and I took the fall. It wasn’t used for good. How can you guarantee what you’ve learned here won’t be used to make things worse for The Colony?”
“I’ll do everything I can to make sure that won’t happen.”
She arched a brow. “You know all about spin, Lindsey. Think about it. You can’t stop them. These guys need hope. They need brides. And what you’re doing is going to destroy everything. Since Brooks died, we’ve only had one bride. One. In months. How can you make sure whatever you take back won’t be used to scare people away from the Coalition? From the Brides Program?”
“Because…because I know what it’s like, what you guys are doing. I know about Krael and the Hive and—”
“Yes, but they could spin everything you give them for political gain. Sacrifice lives for money. Just as it happened to me. A big pharmaceutical company put money above people’s lives. God, the warriors here on The Colony want to live. They want love, family, children. They are barely clinging to hope, holding on by their fingernails. If you’re going to share something with Earth, share that we need more Brides. More volunteers to come here and find their perfect match.”
I bit my lip. That wasn’t what the people who hired me wanted, and I knew it. But could I go through with this now?
I had to. They’d hurt Wyatt if I didn’t. But sacrifice the happiness of everyone here on the Colony? That was a horrible choice. A terrible burden. And the weight of it was crushing me. I couldn’t breathe. I curled my hands around the edge of the exam table, my knuckles turning white as I stared at a smudge on the otherwise pristine floor. Focus. I just needed to breathe.