Second Sun

>Your lost, and quickly running out of time. Least you can do is get them down from there before that time's up. Beyond that, they're on their own. You have a road to find, and hauling them with you is only going to slow you down.

Swallowing your revulsion, you hook your gloved hands over your duplicate's outstretched arms and pull her to the ground. After some resistance, she crumples to the snow, unmoving. Dead? You're not sure. There's no time to find out.

You run, trying to remember your extraction point - but the forest around the river is unfamiliar, and you're lost. You backtrack the way you thought you came, battered by icy wind, slipping through snow. You pass another white tree, identical to the others - or no, it has to be the same... a charred pine, its bark a shell of ash. The yellow on your meter darkens to a shade of red clay. No, no, no, you think, running again, ducking through a hedge of branches. The meter flashes bright red. Nausea sweeps over you and you fall, brought down by the weight of your blood. You crawl ahead through a break in the trees and see that once again you've arrived at the clearing at the black river's shore, to the scene of your crucifixion, and there you are, suspended inverted once more, only now there are crucifixions without number, thousands of bodies floating upside down along the river's length, naked men and women screaming in the pale light of two suns.

"What is happening?" you say out loud, to nobody.

Your vision dims and you gasp for breath. When you see the flashing lights in the sky, you think you're losing consciousness, but it's the lights of the Theseus.

I'm saved.

The quadcopter lands roughly in the clearing. "Here," you say, your voice weak. You try to scream. "I'm over here."

Two men in slim-fit olive-colored space suits, the ones worn by the Navy, rush out of the hatch, and you see them approaching the river. "I'm here," you say, but they are too far away to hear you. You try to crawl closer, away from the tree line, you want to run to them, but you don't have the strength to stand. You see the two men pull the crucified woman from the air and cradle her. They wrap her in heavy blankets.

"No, I'm here, I'm here," you say, but watch them carry the crucified woman, that other version of you, onto the quadcopter.

"I'm here," you say, "please." Your dosimeter darkens to dark brown. The next shade will be the lethal color black. You close your eyes and wait.

---

The shotgun kick of the thrusters shocks you into consciousness, and you recognize where you are. You're in one of the quadcopter's pods, you realize, your ankles and wrists strapped tightly to a cot, your head and neck secured between padded blocks. You're numb, shaking, immersed in blankets tied down at the sides. The liftoff g-force eases off, and you feel weightless.

"Please," you say, "go back. Go back, I'm down there, don't leave me-"

"We've got you now, you're alright," says your instructor, floating through the air to the side of your bed. He's an older man, his hair silver, though his blue eyes have a youthfulness to them. His hands are leather as he checks your pulse. "Your wrists and ankles will be in severe pain," he says. "I don't know how you were tied up there, but you've got some burns. You're also suffering from exposure, a lot of frostbite. Hypothermia."

"You have the wrong me," you say, a vision rushing into your head. Somehow, you saw yourself in the trainee-orange space suit crawling along the tree line. "Please, you have to believe me, I'm still down there. Please don't leave me-"

"No, you're back on the Theseus," your instructor says. "We found you in the forest." He's wearing blue athletic shorts, white socks pulled to his knees, a grey CFNIS T-shirt. "You're confused," he says. "The HUPs are confusing you. You've got dangerous levels of them in you, they're in your blood. Can you state your name? Do you remember your name?"