Battlefield (14 page)

He didn’t like the look in her eyes.  The vivid green he had come to cherish, to adore, turned flat and blank.  Her head was resting in his lap, but she wasn’t sleeping.  It was as though she was doing what he had told her to do – it was as though she had no fight left in her. 

That was probably what upset Gerard the most.  If he knew anyone who fought over everything – fought to have her voice heard, fought to attain her freedom, or even fought to have more macaroni and cheese – it was Devyn.  Yet now, it was like night and day.  She looked up at him with those big eyes, but she didn’t seem him.  If Gerard had to guess, she reminded him of being in some kind of trance, a hazy dream she had yet to wake up from.  While she was in reality, to her, it might feel as though nothing was real to her.

“Your face,” she told him in a soft voice.  Rachel was too busy concentrating on driving – she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it like Hugh and Gerard had – to hear her.  “I know your face.”

Her words, though Devyn probably didn’t know it, meant more to him than she could ever know.  At least it was clear to him that she wasn’t afraid of him, but it also meant that she didn’t know him, not yet, anyways.  What the hell was she on anyways?  What could she possibly have taken, been forced to take -  What would make her this despondent?  What would change her character this drastically?  Gerard would never admit it aloud, but seeing such a shift in Devyn’s personality after four days scared him, and he wanted nothing more than to have Ted fix her, to make her be the way before all of this.

He never should have let her stay.  At least if they all stayed, Devyn wouldn’t be like this and Hugh would still be with them.

You don’t know that
, a voice in the back of his head scolded. 
Even if they kept you all, they still might run tests and experiments on her.  Hell, you should be lucky that it was only her.  This way, at least your head is clear and you can rescue her.

And get Hugh back, of course.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, looking down at her, trying to reach deep into her eyes in order to look for some kind of –
any
kind of life – in them.  “Devyn, are you hurt?”

“Devyn?” she asked furrowing her brow.  “Hurt?”  She shook her head slightly, keeping her eyes within his.  “I don’t understand.”

“Devyn?” Gerard asked.  “Devyn is your name, what you called yourself.”

“I am 113089,” she murmured before glancing away.

It was probably at that moment did Gerard feel his heart truly break.  When she had forgotten her name because it could only mean that, at least for the time being, she had forgotten who she was.

--

“I know what’s wrong with her,” Ted said the instant his eyes took in the unconscious genome in Gerard’s arms.  Though Devyn had been his favorite on the reality show, he knew better than to gawk at her, at least in front of Gerard.  And knowing that she was unconscious gave Ted more leeway to relax and be himself rather than be some star struck fanboy.

“Really?” Gerard asked, his voice laced with agitation as he laid Devyn on the couch as gently as possible.  Rachel was hovering over Ted’s shoulder, hoping to catch anything relating to Hugh and his disappearance.  “Would you mind telling me what the hell’s the matter with her, because I would really like to know.”

“Hang on,” Ted said, spinning around so he faced the computer.  His fingers began to furiously type away on the keyboard, causing Rachel to blink and step back.  She needed to be patient, at least for the time being.  “I need to do something first.”

Gerard took a seat at the foot of the couch, Devyn’s legs strewn across his lap as he leaned over and continued to wait for Ted’s coming explanation.  In fact, he couldn’t stop his left leg from jiggling up and down, up and down, until Rachel, tired of hearing the sound, reached over and placed her hand firmly on his knee.  The two glared at each other for a long moment – both were anxious and upset, and both had every right to feel that way – before Gerard relented, nodding his head once.  Rachel released his knee and turned back to look at Ted expectantly.  She, too, was waiting for some sort of explanation, because once that was given, she could confer with Ted about where Hugh might be and what the best way to retrieve him would be.

Devyn’s tense body suddenly relaxed, and Gerard could hear her breathing steady.  Though she was still unconscious, this seemed like a good sign.

“Okay,” Ted said once he had finished, and spun around in his chair once more.  “Here’s the thing.  Apparently the people at IGL are working on some new kind of technology that would allow a gamer to control an actual human – a player.  The player would be ‘put under,’ which means they release all control over themselves and their thoughts, and when they are ‘disconnected,’ they don’t remember what has happened to them.”

“So Devyn isn’t…”  Gerard cut himself off.  To say he was happy would be erring in diction, but he wasn’t too disappointed.  Upset, hell yes, but he couldn’t be completely angry when there was a chance that her current state wasn’t permanent.  “She’s fine?”

“I disconnected her from the server, and they can’t reconnect her without her there,” Ted said.  “Fine wouldn’t be the word I would use, however.  If she’s been on this drug for the past few days, it needs to get out of her system before she’s ‘normal’ again.  What she needs right now is rest.”

“And after the rest?” Gerard persisted, his brow pushed together.  It was as though he wanted to hope, but was afraid that such a feeling would be all for naught, and this entire situation would be more complicated than it seemed.  “I mean, once she’s done resting…?”

“She should be fine,” Ted told the genome.  “Obviously, she shouldn’t indulge in strenuous behavior, and if she does, she needs to be wary about it, but if she wakes up, if she takes it easy, she should be fine.”

“When you say she’s connected and that you had to disconnect her,” Rachel said, sliding her fingers through her dark hair as she regarded Ted with intensity, “what does that mean exactly?  I get the whole concept of, okay, they want to be able to control a genome and whatever, but how, exactly, is that achieved?  I mean, I know Devyn, and she wouldn’t willingly agree to this, whether she told Hall she would or not.”  There was a high possibility that Hugh might soon be on the same software if he wasn’t already, and she wanted to know as much as she could about it as possible.

“My guess would be,” Ted said, and then quickly added, “and, you have to remember, it’s just a guess – I have no idea what could have happened – but if Devyn is as stubborn as I think she is and that you make her out to be (and I mean that in the best way) – then I assume that Hall needs to restrain her in some way.  Maybe she was tied down to a medical slab, maybe she was restrained by the Whitecoats.  I don’t know.  But once that shit was in her system, it was easier and easier to get the software in of her.

“You see, what Hall did was actually ridiculously genius.  Somehow, he developed a software in a liquid form so it could enter the human body and work as though the human was a hard drive, a computer, I guess.  The only way to get rid of a program would be to uninstall the software, and in this case, it would be to wait until this shit goes through Devyn’s body naturally, like a sickness.”

“Devyn couldn’t be the only test subject,” Rachel stated, an idea suddenly flashing before her eyes.  “She couldn’t be.  Hall has to have Class 2 genomes already waiting.  She was…”

“The test subject,” Gerard finished, his eyes flashing emerald.  “Hall couldn’t risk testing his shit on the Class 2 genomes because it really would take forever – twenty years at least – to make more.  He always had this plan, he always had more genomes so there wasn’t any reason for Devyn to stay behind.”  He clenched his hands into fists at the thought of it, of everything Devyn had endured.

“Hey,” Rachel said, her eyes focused on Gerard.  “I’m just as pissed as you are.  Who knows what could be happening to Hugh right now?  But before we do anything, Devyn needs to get some rest.  Ted, in case you weren’t sure, we’re crashing tonight.  Gerry, you should take Devyn into the bedroom and stay with her.  Me and Ted will start working on a plan to get Hugh back and destroy that fucking hell.”

Gerard’s first instinct was to argue, but he refrained because, honestly, there was no reason to.  Without another word, he slid his arms underneath Devyn and picked her up with ease, and headed to the spare bedroom.  

She sat up straight, her breathing heavy, her eyes snapped open.  She wasn’t where she normally was.  She wasn’t where she was supposed to be.  Her eyes searched the unfamiliar grey room, hoping to see something or someone she recognized – anything that would give her some kind of clue of where she was and what she was doing here. 

“Hey.”

The soft voice caused her head to turn swiftly in the speaker’s direction, but her eyes softened when she saw a familiar pair of pale green eyes.  She tilted her head to the side, her brow pushed down in slight confusion.  “Gerard?” she asked, her voice rough and raspy due to the fact that she hadn’t spoken in a long while.  “What are you doing here?  You’re not supposed to be here at IGL.”  Suddenly, her face was taut, her eyes filled with worry.  “Did they get you?  Hall promised me he wouldn’t go after you.”

“Devyn,” he whispered from the bedside.  He was kneeling down, leaning over her, his sharp eyes going over her face, her eyes, just to make certain that she was, in fact, all right.  “Your name is Devyn, correct?”

Devyn furrowed her brow even more so than she already was.  “What, did you meet a slew of women and forget my name or something?” she asked dryly. 

Gerard’s look turned flat but his eyes danced with happiness.  “Yeah, that’s you all right,” he mumbled to himself.

“I don’t understand,” Devyn said, responding to his dry retort.  “Where are we, because this doesn’t look like IGL, and no offense, but I don’t think Hall would just give me up to you of all people.”  She tilted her head back, still looking for a way to find out where she was in case Gerard wasn’t going to tell her.  Not that he would ever do something like that, but she wanted to get a clear understanding of what had happened because, for the life of her, she didn’t know.

“It’s a really, really long story,” Gerard said, and before Devyn could say anything, he reached up and grabbed her hand in order to emphasize his point.  “Trust me on this one, okay?  You need to shower and clean yourself up.  I promise to tell you over breakfast, but you can trust me when I say that we’re somewhere safe, we’re not at IGL.”  Devyn opened her mouth once again, no doubt to argue with him, no doubt to tell him that she wanted to know everything right then, but Gerard quickly interrupted her.  “You haven’t eaten since I don’t know when and you’ve been unconscious for two days. 
Please
do this.  For me.”

When he saw Devyn’s shoulder slump forward, he knew that he had won, and he grinned triumphantly.  “Here,” he murmured, taking the hand that was still within his and placing it over his broad shoulder before using his arm and wrapping it around her waist.  “Let me help you to the shower.”

Devyn scrunched her nose.  “God, I probably smell,” she muttered to herself.

Gerard smiled.  “You do,” he told her, getting a good hold on her before Devyn stood up.  “But it’s okay.  Everything is okay because you’re okay.”

“Could you at least tell me where we are?” Devyn asked, gripping onto Gerard’s shoulder to keep from falling.  She was weaker than she had originally thought. 

“It’s part of the story,” Gerard promised.  “But it’s somewhere safe.”

Devyn looked as though she wanted to ask more on the subject, but refrained.  Instead, she allowed Gerard to lead her to the nearby bathroom, and then eased her onto the toilet before leaning over and starting a bath.  “Okay, here’s a towel,” he said once he had become satisfied with the water temperature.  “To, you know, dry off with.  There’s a brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, all that hygiene stuff.  And here’s a change of clothing for you.  Rachel got them, so if you don’t like them, you can’t yell at me.”  He turned and headed for the door, but when he got there, he stopped and turned around.  “Promise me you’ll be careful, okay?  I don’t want to have to come in here and find you unconscious because you decided to stand too long, fell, and hit your head on the side of the bathtub.”

“Thanks for your faith in me,” Devyn retorted, rolling her eyes as she did so.

There was an enigmatic smile on his face due to her words at that moment, and he took a couple of steps forward.  Surprisingly enough, he leaned down and gave Devyn a lingering kiss on her cheek.  “I’ve always had faith in you,” he whispered.  The smile was still on his face even as he exited his room.

Devyn was still frozen, could still feel his lips on her cheek, and couldn’t help but have a mirrored smile on her face as well.  Deciding that the faster she did what he told her to do, the faster she would learn everything, she stripped herself of her clothes and carefully entered the bathtub after, of course, plugging the drain in.  The moment her body hit the water, she felt her muscles collectively relax, and it was only at that moment did she realize how tense she had been.

It was a good forty-five minutes before Devyn emerged, and Gerard jumped up from his sitting position to offer her support so they could both walk over to the kitchen.

“Hey!” Rachel exclaimed with a big smile once the two entered the kitchen.  Devyn smiled at seeing her best friend, but raised a cool brow upon seeing Ted at the dining table.  Rachel followed Devyn’s quizzical gaze and waved a dismissing hand.  “Oh, don’t worry about him, sweetie.  H’s a good guy.  A man, but a good guy.  In fact, he kind of saved you.”

“I haven’t told her anything yet,” Gerard said as he helped her sit at the table.

“Why not?” Rachel asked placing a ham, cheese, and broccoli egg white omelet in front of Devyn.

“He told me I smelled,” Devyn cut in as she grabbed a fork, looking at her food with a hunger she hadn’t felt before.

Rachel smacked Gerard on the shoulder.  “Geez,” she said.  “Nice, much?”  She took a seat across from the table.  “Okay, quick introductions, Ted this is Devyn, Devyn, this is Ted.  Ted is, like, in love with you, sweetie, in the most unobsessive crazy way.”

“Oh,” Devyn said, looking at Ted who had yet to speak yet.  “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Anyways,” Gerard said, cutting in with a brisk voice.  “Let’s get the whole catching up thing over with, okay?  I’m starving since someone only cooked Devyn food.”

“She cooked me food as well, actually,” Ted said, looking at his empty plate.  “I just ate it fast.”

When Gerard looked at Rachel, she shrugged her shoulders.  “There’s cereal in the cupboard,” she told him.  “Okay, so anyways, here’s what happened…”

The entire explanation took a good half an hour, and then Devyn’s questions and their answers took another half an hour.  She had finished her food halfway through the story, and even though the pieces began to fall into place, when they did, Devyn still couldn’t believe it.  They had rescued her and they had been successful.  Even more than that, she was glad she couldn’t exactly remember what had taken place when she was “connected to the software,” as Ted had said.

“Wait a minute,” Devyn said after a moment, her eyes taking in the three people seated around her.  “You haven’t told me something.  Where’s Hugh?”  When Ted, Gerard, and Rachel’s faces all dropped, when they started to look away, Devyn felt her stomach tighten.  It was as though she already knew the answer, but she needed them to say it.  “Tell me.  Where’s Hugh?”

Gerard and Rachel exchanged looks, but Rachel looked as though she was going to say it.  In fact, she felt as though she
had
to say it.  “When we went in to get you,” she began, but had to cut herself off so her voice wouldn’t hitch.  “He, uh…”

“He fell behind,” Gerard said, shifting his eyes from Rachel and over to Devyn.  He immediately noticed that her face had paled which was exactly why he had wanted to prevent telling her this for as long as possible.  He should have known better than to assume Devyn just wouldn’t notice.  “But,” he added, “we’re planning on getting him back.”

“Good,” Devyn said, standing up.  “Good.”

“But after much deliberation, you’re staying here,” Gerard said, standing as well.

Devyn laughed, a low, hollow sound.  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked, but when she saw Gerard shake his head solemnly, her eyes narrowed.  “I’m going, and that’s all there is to it.  We’re going to get Hugh back as a team.  You can either include me in the plan or I can figure everything out on my own.”  With that, she headed to her bedroom, slamming the door once she was safely inside.

“It’s just like she never left,” Gerard muttered, deciding to follow her.

Rachel hid a smirk, and she secretly shared a look with Ted as they watched Gerard disappear down the hall.