Happily Ever After (The Lunar Chronicles story continuation)

Chapter 15: The implant

Thorne awoke to the sound of something that reminded him of a school bell.
Wolf groaned as he got out of bed.
"Do I have to?" Thorne pleaded.
"You want breakfast or not?"
Thorne got out of bed and put some clothes on. They had been given this special of uniform, so that it was impossible to tell who was who until you got up really close.
They entered what they had been told was the canteen. It was clear that it had been designed by someone who had been in the military. There was a single counter serving food with a long line behind it. When people received their food, they would take their trays to plain grey tables and sit on army benches.
When Thorne received his food, he couldn't help but wonder who had chewed it before him.

After breakfast, Thorne and Wolf were summoned by the medics who were going to operate on them. Thorne was separated from Wolf, and they were both put in two different rooms.
The room looked just like a normal surgery room, like any other that could also be found on Earth. It had everything: mysterious machinery for which the use could only be guessed, scalpels, scrubs, gloves and the weird hats they make surgeons wear.
A handful of doctors stood around Thorne. He was asked to lie on his back.
"Who even decided to invent this method?" Thorne asked, even though he figured that if Cinder got it removed so easily, it couldn't be that complicated.
It was the head surgeon who cocked his head to the side and spoke: "We didn't invent the method to get rid of our own implants, we didn't have any implanted. It was created to help anyone who had been forced to have the Implant. Like you."
Thorne suppressed a scoff, but he didn't get the chance to say or do anything else before he was put under full narcosis. The world went black.

When Thorne woke up from his synthetic sleep, a male nurse sat beside him.
"Just checking if you were doing okay," the nurse said.
Thorne groaned "Oh I'm just fine. Every time I move my entire body objects by flinching, which only makes the pain worse. Other than that I feel amazing." He failed to smile as he looked down his body to see a blanket covering his body. He didn't have to look to know where they had operated on him. He felt the bandage woven around his middle, thicker on his back.
"It might hurt today, but you should be up and running by tomorrow." The nurse said.
Thorne looked through the window across the hall, the laboratory. He had seen it when he came in. "This camp has a surprising amount of scientists."
The nurse nodded. "We have doctors, surgeons and scientists in almost every field." Thorne raised his eyebrows, but the nurse continued: "Not only soldiers are opposed to how the Lunar war ended, many scientists and medics hate the new way of things as well. They joined us because they have the same belief, that Queen Levana was a strong ruler, and that her power should never have been taken away from her."
"So how many are you and how many of you do what exactly?" Thorne asked him.
"I'd guess about two thousand people. We have a high percentage of guards, commanders and medics from within the army, but we also have cooks, cleaners, even a hair dresser. Every one helps out where they can. Not everyone does the same as they did before the war. Frankly, not all professions are as useful underground. Some shop keepers, for example, help out in the kitchen."
Thorne considered how this was more of a community than an army. "So I have joined somewhat of an underground city."
The nurse nodded, "you could say that, some people down here even want to name it New Artemisia, and make it grow in that way."
"And Mona Park is the leader of all this?"
The nurse frowned. "No, who told you that?"
Thorne shook his head, "never mind, I just assumed so."
"She's pretty high up, but not at the top."
Thorne realised that this conversation could turn out beneficial for him, but he had to be careful, not seem too suspicious. Although it made him sick to think of it, the nurse seemed nice enough and willing to talk to him, unlike many of the military personnel. Thorne hadn't thought anyone from the camp would have been able to show any form of compassion, this nurse seemed to have not just some, but a great deal, even though Thorne didn't want to believe it.
"You said this was more of a community than anything else, then why do you have so many weapons up on the surface?"
The nurse creased his brow. "We don't have any. Look, this is more of a refuge than anything else. We're pretty peaceful. Whatever weapons you claim to have seen, it's probably just a precaution, you know, self-defence in case of an attack."
"Do you know anything about a missile?" Thorne asked carefully.
"You mean the missile that hit us last week?"
"A missile hit you last week?"
"Yeah, we felt a slight tremor last week. We were told it was a missile that had attacked our base. Luckily everyone was underground and protected and the impact was minimised as we weren't hit directly. Nothing was destroyed."
"When's the last time you were above the surface?"
He shrugged and pouted his lip slightly. "We don't really go above the surface, never know who's watching, ready to attack. It's hard to know with the development of interplanetary missiles. Defensive soldiers go up once in a while to assess the situation. I don't think I've been there in over a year ago, why?"
Thorne stared into the distance for a while. Everything was starting to make sense.
All the weapons he and Wolf had seen above the surface in those army tents, Thorne had wondered why they had been stored there. Not all weapons could handle the heat and frost it would be subjected to outside, but all their weapons had been placed outside anyway. It wasn't because they lacked space, the people in this camp could easily dig out tunnels and create extra rooms with all that manpower they had. No, the weapons had been placed outside to make sure not everyone would know they were there. How many in the camp knew? How many didn't?
And there was no way there had been a missile attack on Luna, Commander Kobe would have known, and he would have told Thorne. Otherwise he wouldn't have sent him and Cress in the first place.
The nurse said there had been an attack last week, which corresponded with the time the missile attack on Rieux had been launched. They had covered up the attack on Rieux and pretended there had been an attack on them instead. Maybe that was why everyone in this camp was so against Eartherns. They felt like all misery in their life was caused by Earth, their monarchy falling apart, being prosecuted for following order.
Thoughts clouded Thorne's head and they created an unclearness, this mist in his mind. There were two very clear parts, the only things he knew for sure. Earth and Luna. Us and them. The ICA and the Lunar rebels.
The mist was everywhere in between. It was these people in this camp. It was the innocence found on either side of war. It was the people. The people who didn't deserve to be collateral damage.