Rehab

Bryce woke up screaming. She clawed herself from the bedclothes that had knotted around her and fell onto the bedroom floor, hyperventilating. It took a moment before she regained enough of her senses to realise where she was.

"Amanda? Are you alright?"

Bryce looked up at the face of her husband, Connor, his features only just visible in the light from the hallway, and exhaled slowly. "Yes," she said at last. "Yes. I am." She struggled to sit upright, kicking away the bedsheets from around her legs, feeling the carpet scrape against the soles of her feet. "What time is it?"

Connor picked up the clock by the bedside table. "It's three in the morning," he said wearily. He reached down and laid his hand on Bryce's shoulder, the contact firm and reassuring through her tee-shirt. "Was it the dream again?"

Bryce tried to remember what it was that had woken her. She had vague memories of flashes of light, of muffled explosions, of distant screams. Slowly she got to her feet. "I think it was. I'm not sure."

Connor gave her a questioning look, but said nothing. Instead, he just rolled back from the edge of the bed and patted the mattress. "Come back to bed," he said. "You'll feel better." He smiled invitingly.

"No. I need a minute first. Got to get my head together - know what I mean?"

"Alright. I'll be here, waiting for you."

Bryce padded out of the bedroom and into the bathroom just down the hall. She turned on the light above the washbasin mirror and stared at her reflection. Her eyes were sunken, rimmed with the dark circles of sleeplessness. Lines crossed her face: the visible signs of the stress she felt inside. She passed her hands under the tap, activating the flow of water into the bowl. Then she took a double handful of the clear, cold water and threw it onto her face. It stung, like a handful of icicles. "Goddamn," she breathed out, as the fatigue rushed from her, taking with it the final remnants of her nightmare. Now - perhaps - she could go back to the bedroom. But, when she returned, she could see Connor's form lying there, his chest rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.

She peered into their son's bedroom. The boy was asleep as well, his arms wrapped tight around a stuffed bear. Bryce stared at him, envying the look of repose on his face. She couldn't remember when she last had slept so deeply, so soundly. It would be so good just to climb into bed next to her child, to fall asleep next to him and to share whatever dreams he had. Bryce shuddered. She didn't want her boy to feel the same night terrors that she did, to fight against whatever demons had possessed her.

Bryce left her son's room and made her way to the lounge. It was quiet, almost isolated from the rest of the house. She sat down on the couch, enjoying the feel of the cool vinyl against back and thighs. With her right hand, she reached out for the remote for the television and turned it on. In the darkness of the lounge, the static from the screen shone brightly, casting a pale electric glow across the room. As Bryce held the remote in front of her, it was if her skin was cast in silver rather than pallid flesh.

"C'mon sleepy head! Time to wake up! We got a busy day ahead of us!"

Connor's voice woke Bryce with a start. She felt stiff, unyielding; the result of a night on the couch. "Did I ... ?"

"You sure did, babe." Connor leaned down over the back of the couch and kissed his wife gently on her forehead. "I missed you, but - hey." Connor shrugged. "If it keeps the bad dreams away. But I could always get you a dreamcatcher?"

Bryce shook her head. "It didn't work for Jonny. If it's not going to work for a five-year old, what makes you think it would work for somebody my age?"

Connor eased himself around the couch to perch on the arm closest to Bryce's head. "Can I sit down?" Bryce didn't answer. Instead she sat up and moved along the cushions, giving her husband enough room to join her. Connor slid across and put an arm around her. "Look - Amanda." Bryce squirmed, then settled back into her seat. "It can't go on like this. Please. You can talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

Bryce stared at the television screen. It was blank, lifeless; a grey mirror that reflected back ghosts of whatever was in front of it. At some point during the night the television must have turned itself off. "Nothing's wrong," she said. "I just have nightmares. That's all."

"Have you been taking your pills?" There was a note of warning in Connor's voice. Bryce tried to ignore it and put her arms around Connor, pulling herself close to him.

"Of course I've been taking them." The lie was easy. She had said it so often that she almost believed it herself now. "Every night. Before bed. Like a good girl."

"Uh-huh?" Connor looked down at her. "Are you sure you're not just flushing them away? Remember what the doctor said?"

Bryce let a hand stray down her husband's top, down towards the waistband of his shorts. "I remember what the doctor said," she whispered. Her husband stiffened as she drew her fingers along the tight elastic. "I remember what he said about human contact."

"Mom! Dad!" Jonny's voice echoed from the kitchen. "I need some help!"

Connor reached down and took Bryce's hand in his, lifting it gently away. "Whose turn is it?"

"It's your turn."

"Right." Connor got up. "Coming, boy! Tell daddy what you need!"

As her husband left to deal with the domestic emergency, Bryce pulled her legs up and folded them underneath her. They felt cold and unyielding, as if they belonged to something else.

Bryce looked out of the kitchen window, onto the garden terrace just beyond. Outside, it was a beautiful day. The sun shone down onto the few square metres of decking that came with their apartment. Connor and Jonny were chasing each other through the bean plants and tomato vines, laughing together. She watched them enjoying themselves, before turning her attention to dinner. Her husband and son would be coming in, hungry and demanding food, and somebody had to get it ready for them.

From the rack by the refrigerator, Bryce selected a paring knife then set to preparing the meal. Most of the vegetables were fresh - from the beds that took up most of their terrace. Her husband took great pride in being able to feed his family with things that he had grown himself, and was always bringing in the latest of his harvest. He had tried to persuade Bryce that maybe she should take over one of the beds and try raising some vegetables. Bryce has always refused. She felt more comfortable in the kitchen.

She began by washing the vegetables, cleaning the soil and insects from them. Then, once she was happy, Bryce started to scrape and slice. The knife she had chosen was sharp and felt comfortable in her hands - almost like an extension of herself. It cut deep and true, slicing through the fibres in a single stroke. Soon, Bryce was lost in the rhythm, the regular 'thwack' of metal on wood.

The edge of the knife was so sharp that Bryce didn't notice at first that she had cut herself. It was only when a strange liquid started to pool around the slices of pepper on the chopping board that she noticed what had happened. A flap of skin was hanging from the index finger of her left hand; held on by a strip of flesh. A thin, brown liquid was oozing from the gash left behind. Bryce lifted the injured hand, examining it. She could see where the knife had sliced into her, cutting so close to the bone that she could see something glistening amongst the gore. Curious, Bryce prodded at the wound. It wasn't bone. It was something silver - something metallic. She could see silver fibres running through her flesh, twitching in time with the pulses of fluid that dripped from her hand. A memory stirred within her.

"Hey!"

Bryce looked away from her hand. Connor was standing by the sliding doors that opened out onto the terrace. "Amanda! What have you done?" He stumbled over the threshold, recovered, then was at Bryce's side in a moment.

"Nothing." Bryce put down the knife and reached for a paper towel. She began to wrap it around her finger, putting pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. "It'll be alright.:"

Connor grabbed her hand. "Let me see!"

Bryce pulled away. "No. It'll be fine. See to the others."

"Others? What others?" Connor took Bryce by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. "You're in shock, aren't you? Come on - sit down. We need to get that seen to."

Bryce reached for the knife, grabbed it by the handle and swung it around in an arc towards Connor's throat. It stopped, the edge of the blade just shy of the pulsing vein in his neck. Connor froze, his eyes wide with terror. It took him a minute to speak. "I'm sorry," he finally whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Bryce felt her legs give out from under her, and she fell to the kitchen floor.

It was late. Connor put their son to bed, staying long enough with Jonny to read him a story and put out his light. Bryce watched from the door of Jonny's room, afraid to go near him. Soon it would be time for her to go to bed, to lie down in the darkness and to await the nightmares that haunted her sleep. If only there was some way that she could avoid them.

"Done," Connor said as he closed Jonny's bedroom door behind him. "Time for us to hit the sack." He put an arm around Bryce's waist, gently pushing her towards the bathroom. "You get ready first, Amanda," he said.

Bryce glared at him. "Do I get some privacy?"

Connor laughed. "We've been together for seven years now. I know all your secrets. Seriously - what are you going to get up to in the bathroom that would shock me?"

"Please."

"Alright." Connor watched Bryce enter the bathroom and close the door.

Inside, Bryce stood in front of the mirror. She opened the bathroom cabinet, taking out a bottle of makeup remover and a bag of cotton pads. Then she started to scrub her face: slowly and methodically cleansing the cosmetics from her skin. The pile of used cotton pads grew beside her, each one stained the colour of pale flesh. Bryce examined her reflection, casting a critical eye over it. There, beneath her left ear, she caught sight of something - a little tag of flesh. Bryce fumbled in her makeup bag and brought out a pair of chrome-plated tweezers. They would do for this job.

She pinched the nub of flesh between the jaws of the tweezers and twisted. There was a slight moment of pain as the skin tag came away, trailing what looked like a bloody thread behind it. Bryce tugged at the fibre, watching as it came away in a great arc around her head. Her face sagged then, as the thread looped across her forehead, fell away to reveal a steel skull with muscles made of taut wires and cables. Bryce stopped and reached up, running her fingers across the metal ridges and smooth plates, amazed at what the mirror was telling her.

The memories returned: the sounds of battle, men screaming in pain, flesh-searing explosions. And there she was, in the middle of it, an armoured angel of death. As Bryce remembered - as she understood what these memories meant - the world froze.

The body lay in a transparent plastic tube filled with a straw-coloured liquid. Canulae had been inserted wherever there was room, on the patches of flesh that were not obscured by layers of polycarbonate armour and electric muscles. A breathing mask part-concealed a face that had once been human, but was now covered in scars. Small, spider-like machines moved through the tube, tending to its occupant. A plaque on a diagnostic screen at the foot of the tube bore the legend: 'Bryce, A; Sergeant - UNSF 07919355932'.

A technician - the badge dangling from the pocket of white uniform read 'Davies' - approached the senior medical officer, Doctor Hanson. "I'm sorry, sir," she began. "The subject has rejected the scenario. We've had to stop all input and suspend her higher mental functions."

Doctor Hanson acknowledged the technician's report with a shake of his head. "Thank you. You did the right thing. We don't want to cause her more stress than she has already suffered. Make her as comfortable as you can. We'll try again tomorrow; see if we can tweak something in the scenario to make a breakthrough." He tried to smile, to reassure himself that he was doing the right thing. "We'll make her fit for the world she helped build. Then we can bring her home," Hanson said.

"Yes, sir," Davies replied. "Just like we'll bring all of them home."