Evolution (16 page)

As Ariadne helps me climb onto the operating table, the doctor comes into the room. He's a skinny man in a white lab coat, with glasses over his blue eyes and a splatter of freckles on his cheeks. He seems familiar, but I can't place where I've seen him before.

He holds out his hand for me to shake. “I'm Dr. Jeb,” he says. “You must be Clementine. We've met before, though you may not remember me.”

When he smiles, I realize where I know him from: He's the doctor who took my brain scans the day I left for the Core. “You performed part of my Extraction test, didn't you?”

“You are correct. In fact, I also performed some of your Mod tests when you were a little girl. But you would've been too young to remember.”

I have almost no memory of the years of my life before I was sent into the work camp. Only flashes of bright lights and needles and nurses.

“Let's begin, shall we?” Dr. Jeb says, snapping on a fresh set of gloves. “Today's procedures shouldn't take long. I'm sure you're eager to get them over with. If you could lie back on the table for me.”

I do as he says, settling my head onto the thin pillow. Commander Charlie is still looming on the other side of the glass. I wish he'd leave. But I'm sure he wants to make certain I cooperate and the tests go smoothly.

“What exactly are you going to do?” I ask.

“I'm going to take a pint of your blood and also extract samples of your bone marrow and muscle tissues. After that, I'm going to hook you up to a machine and take some new brain scans.”

I exhale. It sounds easy enough.

“However,” Dr. Jeb says, and my stomach sinks, “we need samples of some deeper muscle tissues. I can do it laparoscopically, but it's quite a painful procedure. So, you have the option of going under general anesthesia. I'd knock you out for about an hour. It's what I would recommend.”

“I'm not going under,” I say immediately. Every other time I've done that, the surgeon has done something to me without my permission.

“All right, it's your choice,” Dr. Jeb says. “I can give you a local anesthetic, then. If at any time the discomfort becomes too much, you can always change your mind.”

I won't change my mind. No matter how painful it is, I'm staying awake so I can watch the procedure.

Ariadne moves around the table to administer the anesthesia. A small prick of a needle to my hip, and my whole abdominal area becomes numb. The good news is it also makes my ribs finally stop hurting.

“We'll begin with the bone-marrow sample,” Dr. Jeb says.

He has me lay on my side on the table. My hospital gown covers most of my naked body, but he uncovers part of the back to do the procedure. I try not to think about Commander Charlie watching through the glass, and what he might be able to see.

The needle for this procedure is much bigger than the one for the anesthetic, and it's attached to a huge syringe. I bite hard on the inside of my cheek as Dr. Jeb pushes the needle into my hipbone. Pressure spreads all through my hip and lower back, but it's not unbearable. The meds are doing their job, so far.

When he's finished, he tells me to roll back over. I glimpse murky blood in the syringe before he sets it on the medi-bot's tray.

“Now for the deeper tissues.”

The needle goes into my belly button this time. The pain spreads like pinpricks of fire. I clench my teeth harder and harder, breathing deeply through my nose. The material Dr. Jeb sucks into the syringe is a grayish material, mingled with more blood. The sight of it makes me nauseous.

“One down,” he says, pulling the needle out. “Five more to go.”

*   *   *

“That wasn't so bad, was it?” Commander Charlie asks from beside my hospital bed.

I sit up in the bed, wincing. They've transferred me to a recovery room, now that my operations and brain scans are finished. Dr. Jeb gave me stronger pain medicine after the anesthetic wore off, but there's still a little discomfort when I move. “Is that it? Or will you need me for another procedure?”

“We should have everything we need,” Dr. Jeb says on the other side of the bed. He's checking my blood pressure, while Ariadne arranges the pillow behind my back. Commander Charlie hands me a cup of water, which I sip gratefully.

“How soon will you know if you can create a resistance serum?” I ask.

“Within a few hours,” Charlie says. “We'll test it on the other survivors who returned from the Surface with you.”

“If your antibodies work,” Dr. Jeb says, removing the blood pressure scanner from my wrist, “their symptoms should decrease significantly as soon as we administer the serum.”

It has to work. Otherwise, Commander Charlie will put his old Stryker plan into motion. Thousands of people will die.

“Dr. Jeb is going to keep you under observation here for the next few hours, so you'll be close by if we need you,” Charlie says. “But you're welcome to get some rest. I know you didn't get much sleep last night.”

As if in answer, a yawn stretches my face in two.

Dr. Jeb chuckles. “We'll leave you to it, then.”

He and Commander Charlie make for the door at a quick stride, talking to each other in low voices. Before Ariadne follows them, she shows me a button I can press if I need anything.

I'm so exhausted I should be able to fall asleep without any trouble. But as soon as I close my eyes, my mind drifts to thoughts of Beechy aboard one of the Mardenite battle stations. I picture the aliens stringing him up to a ceiling by burning hot iron chains, or slicing him open on a table in a dark room, or torturing him with tiny croacher-like insects that crawl under his skin.

How many hours has it been since he was taken? He could be dead by now. He could've given up all kinds of information that will lead the Mardenites to the Core to capture the rest of us.

Beechy is stronger than that. He's still alive. He has to be.

Once we have a serum to make everyone resistant to the poison, we can send more troops to the Surface. We can infiltrate the battle stations and get him and the rest of the prisoners out. We'll find a way.

Beechy could've left me to rot in Karum prison when I was imprisoned there weeks ago, but he came and saved me. So I'm not giving up on him.

*   *   *

There's a figure looming over my bed. A dark shape wearing a navy blue suit and white gloves.

Commander Charlie leans over me and brushes a stray curl out of my face. His mouth curves into a cruel smile. Slowly, he removes an object from his pocket—an injection syringe. He presses the needle against my forehead and shoves it through the skin.

I wake screaming. There's a pounding of footsteps in the hallway outside.

Ariadne rushes into the room. “What's wrong?”

I'm scrambling to untangle from the bedsheets. “Commander Charlie—he was in here.”

She glances around the empty room, looking confused. “No, he wasn't.” She touches my shoulder. “You need to calm down. You're okay. You were dreaming.”

I touch the spot on my forehead where he'd plunged the needle in. There's nothing there, no blood or anything. I swallow hard. It was just a dream. Charlie has more important things to do than subdue me in my sleep.

Still, I hesitate. “You're sure no one came in here?”

Ariadne shakes her head. “No one can come in without passing the nurse's station, and I've been there the whole time.”

I close my eyes briefly, exhaling to help slow my racing heartbeat. It was just a dream, like all the other nightmares I've had about Charlie. I shouldn't be afraid of him anymore; his serums can't control me. But fear will control me, if I let it. So I have to let it go.

“What time is it?” I ask, rubbing the grogginess out of my eyes.

“You just missed dinner, but I can bring you something to eat.”

Dinnertime? I can't remember what time it was when I finished the Mod tests. “How long was I asleep?”

“About four hours.”

I sit bolt upright in bed. “Where's Dr. Jeb? Did he finish the serum?”

“He's testing it right now,” Ariadne says. “I can take you to him as soon as you have something to eat.”

Her voice is firm, commanding. She's not going to let me leave any sooner.

“Fine,” I say.

She leaves and comes back with a dinner tray for me. There's a thin slice of smoked coura and cheese, along with a serving of hodgori, baked custard.

“Take your time,” Ariadne says as I start to eat too quickly. “We don't want you scarfing it down only to throw it all back up.”

I force myself to slow down, though I don't have time for this. Someone should've come for me as soon as the resistance serum was ready for testing. I want to be there when they find out whether or not it works, to make sure the Developers won't go back on their promise.

*   *   *

After I finish eating, Ariadne takes me down several corridors to a room that seems to be a small laboratory. There are counters lining two of the walls, and machines emitting beeps and sputtering sounds, such a high frequency I can't hear the sounds when my left ear is facing the machines. A bluish liquid pumps through a giant tube on the counter to my left.

The left half of the wall on the far side of the room is made of glass, like the wall in the operation room earlier. The right half is covered in data screens. Commander Charlie and Commander Regina stand with Dr. Jeb in front of the monitors.

On the other side of the glass portion of wall, Lieutenant Dean and Skylar are sitting in exam chairs in a smaller room, hooked up to machines. Nurses hover over them. Both of them still have foreheads shiny with sweat from the fever, and they look even more tired than earlier. Dean seems to be staring right at me as I walk forward. But when I wave, he doesn't seem to notice. I'm pretty sure the glass is darker on the other side.

“Dr. Jeb,” Ariadne says. “I've brought Clementine.”

Charlie glances in my direction, and my throat closes up momentarily. He looks exactly the way he did in my nightmare, minus the cruel smile. He's even holding something in his hand. But as I step closer, I see it's not a syringe—it's a vial of liquid. It must be the resistance serum.

“It's good to see you again,” Charlie says, sounding strangely chipper. Things must be going according to his plan. “I hope you had a nice, long rest.”

“I did. Thank you.” I move closer to the screens so I can see what they're looking at. Heart rate, oxygen levels, and other vital signs, it looks like. But some of the screens have data I can't interpret. One has three rotating images of a double helix shape: DNA. I wonder if one of them is mine. “How's the serum coming?” I ask.

“We've just administered your antibodies to Lieutenant Dean and Skylar,” Regina says. “We should know if it will work in the next few minutes.”

“I've already tested the serum we synthesized in a simulator,” Dr. Jeb says, making a note on a tablet he's holding. “The antibodies attacked the molecules of the poison gas, as we hoped they would. It's looking like we have a working serum. But keep your fingers crossed.”

I glance at Dean and Skylar on the other side of the glass. There's no outward sign that they're getting better.
Please get better.

“You're dismissed, Ariadne,” Commander Charlie says. “Thank you for bringing Clementine here.”

Ariadne plasters that mindless smile of hers on her face. “Of course, sir,” she says, and backs out of the room.

Seeing her respond to him like that reminds me of the fact she still knows nothing about the war against Marden's army. Or rather, she doesn't believe what I told her. She must think we're producing another control serum or something.

Dr. Jeb moves his tablet to his side. “I'd like to check with our subjects and see how they're feeling.”

He and Commander Charlie head for the door to the other room. I start to follow them, but Commander Regina touches my shoulder to stop me. “You'd better stay here,” she says. “There isn't enough room for all of us in there.”

I shake her hand off my shoulder. “Fine.”

The door closes behind the other two. I watch them approach Lieutenant Dean and Skylar on the other side of the glass, but of course I can't hear their conversation. I'm all too aware of Regina breathing over my shoulder.

“I'm surprised you cooperated with us so well,” she says. “After all the times you've fought Commander Charlie before, I was worried you'd resist the procedures.”

“Well, we had an agreement,” I say. And it's not like the Developers gave me much of a choice. I turn to face Regina. “I have a question.”

“Yes?” she says.

“Why haven't you told the Core citizens what's going on? They should know Kiel is under invasion.”

She purses her lips slightly. “For now, it's better this way. They can continue feeling safe and comfortable while we take care of things. Of course, if the situation progresses and the Core becomes endangered, we'll inform the citizens as we see necessary.”

That's the way they always do things—keep up their lies as long as possible, until they have no choice but to tell the truth. It's not a policy for citizen protection; it's a policy for control.

“You should tell them now, instead of waiting until they're about to die,” I say, my nostrils flaring in anger. “They deserve to know what's happening. Maybe you don't realize it, but the more lies you tell them, the more they'll despise you once the truth comes out. One day your system's going to splinter, and your serums will stop working. Then everyone will know. And they won't stand for it anymore. You can't keep them all subdued forever.”

When I finish, Regina's face is rigid. I know I've gone too far. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for her reaction. Trying to figure out what I can say to make this better.