Pain sends me into a fetal position on the floor. It’s a brief surge. The men are out of the room only a few seconds later, followed by Merle. Someone must be monitoring my reactions, managing me as if I were a dog on a choke chain.
Yank me back. Teach me a lesson.
I crawl to the cot and drop down on my side. Inside my head, information flows.
Door was open for nineteen seconds. Time between my first movement and the pain in my head—four seconds. Position at the foot of the bed. Palm to the face of each soldier, smashing his nose into his brain will take three seconds. Only one second to get into the doorway before I’m incapacitated.
A dozen other scenarios go through my head, but none are any more plausible.
Patience.
Merle wants to be my friend. He wants me to talk. If I can gain his trust, the door will remain open longer. There may be only one soldier escort instead of two. I’ll have to bide my time, watch for patterns and weaknesses.
I hear the door open and look up to the face of the woman who bandaged me before. She carries a medical bag not unlike the one I’ve seen Riley haul around with her. I realize I have seen this woman before I was brought here, but only in a reference photograph.
Her expression changes as she looks at my face. Confusion colors her eyes briefly before she looks away from me, her cheeks tinged with red. She runs her fingers through her short black hair, pulls the chair over to the side of the cot, and takes my hand. She rolls up my sleeve without a word.
“You’re Anna Jarvis.”
“I am.” She doesn’t look back at my face as she speaks. She keeps her eyes on her work as she unwinds the bandage around my arm, cleans the wound, and wraps it back up.
“You defected from Mills.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
She stops and looks into my eyes. She moistens her lips and then looks away.
“The original plan of supplementing food sources with synthetic compounds is sound,” she says. “However, they took it too far too quickly. The human body isn’t meant to survive strictly on supplements. Their callous attitude toward those who were trying to restore the soil—wasting time and money, Graham Mills said—didn’t sit right with me.”
I stare at her, waiting for the rest of the story.
“I spoke out against Robert Grace on synthetics as a complete solution to the food shortages. After he was killed, I was informed my life was now in danger.”
“But he was killed by Peter Carson,” I say, “or someone carrying out his instructions.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Who, then?”
“Maybe someone who could see the future,” she responds with a shrug. “I don’t have a name; I only know he was set up to be a martyr.”
I narrow my eyes as I try to learn more details about her from the information contained in my implants, but the information is either not there or inaccessible.
“Did you work on Project Mindstorm?” I ask.
“No.” She goes back to wrapping my arm. “I knew about the concept of creating a cyber-enhanced soldier but none of the details. Not until I left. Roll over to your back, please. I want to change the bandages on your legs.”
I comply. I don’t see a reason not to. She’s a doctor, like Riley. She should have some natural inclination toward empathy, which would make her an easier target for manipulation. If I can placate her, make her see me as non-threatening, she could be taken by surprise. I could even use her as a hostage.
Anna can’t get at the bandages on my thighs by pulling up the legs of the linen pants I’m wearing, and ends up having to pull them down off my hips instead. In the process, my shirt rides up as well. Anna’s eyes focus on my stomach briefly, then slightly lower.
She licks her lips again, and I sense the dark flavor of desire on her.
Another potential avenue for escape.
She’s attracted to me. Instead of taking her by force, she could be a willing hostage—someone who will help me escape if provided with appropriate motivation.
I watch her closely as she changes the wrappings around my legs. Her fingers tremble as she slides her hand against my skin, and she continues to lick her lips with nervousness. I’m fairly certain she didn’t have this same reaction when she treated me before, and I wonder what the difference is.
“How do I look?” I ask when she finishes her work. I give her an intentionally seductive half-smile when she glances at me.
“You heal very quickly,” Anna says. Her blush is quite noticeable now. “I thought I had the wrong room when I opened the door. Your face was so bruised before, I barely recognized you.”
Anna places the leftover bandages in her bag and pulls out a syringe.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Just vitamin supplements,” she tells me. She places the needle at the inside of my elbow and pushes the plunger. “Merle said you didn’t eat much today. You really need to take in nourishment to keep your strength up. How are you feeling?”
“Everything hurts,” I answer honestly.
“I’m not surprised.” She presses her lips together. She doesn’t like how I was treated when I first arrived.
“Do they do that a lot?” I ask. “Torture prisoners?”
“I’m not entirely sure they’ve ever had a prisoner before,” Anna says. “But no, they don’t normally act like that, and I’m not very happy with them.”
I nod, both to her and to myself. She is empathetic. I’m sure I’ll be able to use her to my advantage.
“That box they put me in…” My voice trails off as my throat seizes up on me. I try to swallow, but I can’t. It feels like my tongue is swelling up. I push my shoulder against the bed to roll over, but my body suddenly goes stiff, and I start to shake uncontrollably.
“Galen? Galen!” Anna’s face looms over me, but I can’t respond to her. “Merle! I need help! He’s having a seizure!”
She places her hands on my shoulders, holding me to the bed. I can’t feel her touch; I can only watch her actions as someone else enters the room. I can’t focus enough to tell who it is.
“Grab my bag! Look for a bottle marked benzodiazepine.”
I jerk and thrash, but I still can’t feel anything. Bright lights flicker in my eyes and in my head, but there’s no accompanying information in my mind.
“Hold him down. Make sure his head is turned to the side.”
I watch Anna fill another syringe from a vial and inject it into my thigh. After a few seconds, my body stills and I collapse on the mattress. I still can’t feel anything, and I can only breathe in quick, short breaths.
“The implants are totally fucked,” Errol says. I don’t know when he came into the room or how long he’s been here. “They’re going into critical failure.”
I can only barely hear the words, but my heart beats faster at his diagnosis. What happens to me if the implants fail? Were they scrambling themselves, like Merle said they could do if someone tried to access information? Is this going to kill me?
“What did you do to him?” Merle is next to me now.
“I only gave him a vitamin shot. It’s the same one everyone gets. That shouldn’t be having this kind of effect.”
“Vitamins aren’t going to interfere with the implants,” Errol says. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t know what’s going on. There could be a defect in the original manufacturing. Some of this doesn’t fit with my design at all.”
“We have no idea what modifications Dr. Grace incorporated into his treatments,” Merle says. “There’s no telling what could have an impact on him.”
“I don’t think it was the shot,” Errol says. “These readings are FUBAR.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Fucked up beyond all recognition.”
“Is that your technical opinion?”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”
“Can you do anything about it?” Anna asks.
“May
be, but without access to the drug treatments and the specs from this exact implant’s construction, anything I do will be temporary.” Errol presses against the device in my neck. “Do you think you could remove the implants surgically?”
“Not without killing him,” she says. “These are meant to be permanent.”
“Hell if I know what else to do. I’ll go over the diagnostic data, but that’s going to take time.”
“Make it quick,” Merle says. “We can’t lose him. He’s far too important.”
The flashes in my head increase. I can’t see. I can’t hear. A tidal wave of data inside my head smashes into me. Every memory I have ever had from the moment I was born floods into my head. A million scenes go through my mind, and then I see a brilliant white light. It blinds me from the inside until there is blackness.
Nothing but blackness.
Chapter 16
I’m fractured.
Inside my head, memories flow in and out like ocean waves, depositing bits and pieces of information on the shoreline of my psyche. Sometimes the pieces flow together and the pictures are clear, but usually there are only fragments—broken and disjointed.
The smiling face of my mother as she lifts me into her arms.
My sister, newly born, and my father instructing me on how to give her a bath.
Holding my sister’s hand as we walk to school and hoping none of my friends see us.
The deep ache in my heart when my father tells me mother isn’t coming home from the hospital.
The invasion of our land. My father and other neighbors meeting in secret. Men in suits followed by men in uniform coming to our farm and dragging my father away.
“Take care of Amelia,” he tells me. “Protect the farm. You’re the only son.”
I see myself kneeling on top of his unmarked grave, crying out, “I tried, Dad. I swear I tried, but I couldn’t stop them! I failed. I failed her, and I failed you.”
A man in a black robe, looking down on me from above.
“Galen Michael Braggs, you are hereby sentenced to life’s end. Your body will be turned over to the Mills Conglomerate Medical Center to fulfill your oath of loyalty in whatever manner they see fit.”
Fear. Unmitigated terror. I’m strapped to an operating room table. They won’t tell me what they’re going to do. I scream and scream, but no one listens.
As the memories ebb and flow, I’m aware of the world outside my head. I hear familiar voices, recognize scents, and see faces I should recognize, but I can’t make sense out of any of it.
“So, here’s what’s supposed to happen: there’s webbing—more like a chain link fence, really—that’s built around his existing memories. It acts as a set of pathways. Whenever his brain tries to access a memory, it hits the fence and is diverted back to the primary implant.”
“So all the information is still there?”
“Yes, but locked behind the fence.”
“So, what? The fence came down?”
“More like there’s a big-ass hole in it now. Everything is leaking through.”
“Is that why he’s nonresponsive?”
“I’m not inside there with him. I can’t tell you what’s going on in his head. I can only give you the results of the diagnostic.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Not with the current implants. They’d have to be replaced, if that’s even possible. I don’t think there’s any way to repair them. Even if I could, we still don’t have the right drug treatment. You can’t have one without the other. In the early trials, something like this happened. All those guys ended up incinerated. Fucking Mills.”
The sounds fade. The only scents are the stale odor of the blanket pulled up to my chest and my own body. I can’t move. I can open my eyes, but the visual input just buzzes around in my head, meaningless and vague.
Keeping my eyes closed feels better. Sleep comes, but it is as confusing and restless as being awake. There are images of a beautiful woman who holds me through the pain of transformation. The touch of her skin electrifies me. I know the woman is Riley. I want to grab hold of her and never let go, but the thought frightens me as much as it entices me.
I see myself above her naked body. She smiles up at me with dark, hooded eyes. Her fingers trace my jaw as she pulls my mouth to hers.
She lied.
I remember the first time I saw her. She was wearing a surgical mask, but I remember her eyes. She smiled and told me to relax. She said everything would be all right when I woke up.
She lied, she lied, she lied.
“Shh, you’re all right.”
“She lied…”
“Can you hear me? Talk to me, Galen.”
The sound fades. I’m not even sure if it was real or just part of another dream. I’m sure I’m still a prisoner in a cell, and I can’t trust anyone around me. I need Riley, but I don’t know if I can trust her either.
I can’t even trust myself.
Sleep comes and goes.
I feel little difference between the two states now. I used to know exactly how many hours, minutes, and seconds had passed, but time has no meaning for me anymore. Sometimes I’m in a cell and there are people around me, talking. Sometimes I’m in the lab with Riley. Sometimes I find myself on a farm as a child, playing with my sister. I have no idea which one is real anymore.
“So, no response at all?”
“Not for two days now. Nothing coherent, anyway.”
“He won’t eat?”
“I’ve got him on an IV now.”
I miss the taste and texture of the liquid nutrition drinks Riley prepared for me. There wasn’t anything special about them, but she made them for me, and that was important. She drugged them to make me sleep, but that didn’t matter. She’d do anything for me.
She lied to me.
Ice flows through my veins. I can’t breathe unless I tilt my head back, and I’m so cold, I’m not sure why I bother. I should let go—let the water take me. I can’t do it, though. Something inside me won’t let me give up.
“He responds better to Anna.”
“Of course he does.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You understand why the doctors are all female, don’t you? They use sex to obfuscate any information the specimens may ingest that goes against what they’ve been told. They have to trust their doctors, or it all falls apart. What better way to control a man than with his dick?”
“Do you think I can control him?”
“Honestly? I think he’s a bigger danger to you than anyone else here.”
I see my sister. She’s home from school and laughing about a joke she’d heard during class. I’m worried, but I don’t want to alarm her, so I say nothing.
The next time I see her, she’s covered in blood.
They have her. They have my sister.
I scream. I scream over and over again until my voice is hoarse, and my throat burns. I’m being strapped down, and I thrash against the hands that restrain me.
Don’t take my memories away!
I feel heavy and warm. I’ve been injected with something again, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know by whom. The warmth is welcomed, though. I let it lull me back to sleep.
I wake to pain.
I have no way of determining the origin. There is no stopping or starting point—everything hurts. It goes on and on without end.
Whatever small fraction of my brain that is still capable of rational thought cries out for Riley. She’s the only one who can take this torment away.
With great effort, I force my eyes open. I know the face closest to me. She’s tried to care for me, but she can’t.
“Please.” I turn my hand over and move it just enough to clamp onto her arm. “Please…I need Riley.”
Anna looks at me with wide eyes.
“Galen?” she whispers.
“Please,” I say again. “Riley.”
She nods slowly, and I close my eyes again.
&nbs
p; The pain doesn’t stop. It amplifies to incredible levels and then drops for a while but never ceases. I know there are many people gathered around me in a cramped space, but I no longer know who they are.
“We are out of options.”
“There are always options.”
“Not this time.”
“What are you saying?”
“He’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
*****
I feel myself lifted from the bed. I can’t open my eyes, but the sense of movement is unmistakable. The constant pain has dropped to a nearly bearable level, but I know the reprieve is temporary. I can feel my brain cracking apart. Pieces come loose. I wonder if they’ll fall out of my ears.
I laugh at the image.
“He’s delirious.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“Half a day, tops.”
“What if we’re spotted?”
“We are going to have to be very careful. Just Anna and Errol on the final leg, along with the driver.”
Rumbling and shaking combine with the pain. I’m moving again but at a much faster pace. When I force my eyes open, I see windows. There are bright green leaves on the trees as I fly past them.
Darkness again. Blessed darkness.
Fresh air. I pull it into my lungs as I’m lowered to the ground.
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
“As soon as I remove that chip from his head, the homing mechanism in his implants will activate again. They’re designed to work completely independently of the drug treatments, so there shouldn’t be a malfunction.”
“How long before they find him?”
“An hour, hour and a half, tops.”
“I don’t know if he’ll make it that long.”
“Nothing else we can do.”
Nausea and dizziness fill me. I shift my weight and hear the dry crackling of leaves beneath me. Peeling my eyelids back, I see that I am alone. It’s dark, and I hear buzzing insects nearby.
Free. Freed. Freedom.
Get back to Riley!
I’m on my back. I twist and turn, trying to flip myself over, but I don’t have the strength to create enough momentum to roll. I barely manage to reach my arm across my chest and grab at the ground next to me. Using a root half buried in the dirt, I pull myself onto my stomach.