Page 4

James

Chapter 4

Sounds bleed in and out: a smear of voices, the clangor of metal. Pain. Light flares in electric bursts behind my eyes. I feel hands on my body, cold steel, my thoughts slurring. A blind assessment of the situation seems to indicate that I’m lying on a gurney, being wheeled down what I can only assume is a hallway. I have to hold on to my mind, force it to focus before I pass out, because if I pass out I won’t wake up until my throat’s healed, which means I might wake up right as they’re cutting the kidneys out of my body.

Or worse.

It’s not common knowledge that I have healing powers, but it’s not exactly a secret, either. The Reestablishment must’ve really gone to shit out here if they’re this bad at their jobs. You’d think one of the most technologically advanced fascist regimes in history would’ve done a little digging on its prisoners. You’d think they would’ve known that they couldn’t just slit my throat and toss me on a gurney in the bowels of some top-secret location on a top-secret island without serious consequences. You’d think they would’ve bound my hands and legs before releasing me from my cell, that they might’ve given me some kind of tranquilizer or at least sealed my eyes shut—

Yeah. Never mind. Now that I think of it, no way they’re that stupid. This is more likely some kind of a trap.

Time to pivot.

Luckily, my head is beginning to clear. My breathing has begun to stabilize. A sentence I never thought I’d think: I’m grateful for the mess of blood all down my throat, because it’s hiding the fact that my wound is healing.

I slit my eyes open.

Doll Hands is a blur beside me, but there seems to be someone else, too. My hearing is improving, my heart rate picking up.

“—was hoping to get home in time for dinner,” some guy says, then laughs. “I guess I should’ve known better. All of them back-to-back, huh? I’ll be working through the night processing your new dump of bodies.”

Wow, great.

Doll Hands is a serial killer. My pants were getting tight over a serial killer. Kenji is going to love this.

“Did I tell you my wife is making lasagna?” The guy laughs again, but now he sounds nervous.

Can’t blame him. Serial killers tend to make people nervous.

“She makes great lasagna,” he’s saying. “Actually, she’s good at everything. I mean, I always knew she was talented, but man, every day she surprises me. Oh, and we just got our wedding photos back—”

Without warning we crash into something, and my head lifts, then slams back onto the steel gurney so hard I nearly wince. Silently, I revisit every foul word I’ve ever known.

“Whoops, didn’t see that wall there!” More panicked, high-pitched laughter from the guy, then the shuddering sound of wheels, the vibration of metal, and we’re on the move again. I have to be careful not to lift my chest as I inhale, but I’m feeling strength return to my body, which means it’s about time to make a move.

“You know,” says the nervous guy, “you don’t have to come with me all this way—”

“Yes, Jeff, I do,” she says softly. “Soledad’s orders.”

Something stirs in my chest when she speaks, and mentally I punch myself in the crotch. Her voice is silky smooth—the voice of a sociopath or a siren—and I’m worried Jeff and I might piss our pants if she keeps talking.

“Oh,” he says. “I—I didn’t realize.”

Luckily, Doll Hands says nothing to this, but now I’m wondering who the hell Soledad is.

“Did I mention my wife is making lasagna tonight?”

More silence.

“I love lasagna,” says Jeff. “Do you—do you love lasagna?”

When she ignores him for the second time, I start to feel bad for the guy hoping to cut the organs out of my corpse. I sit up and turn to face him. “For what it’s worth, Jeff, I fucking love lasagna.”

Jeff screams.

I lock eyes with Doll Hands for only a second, long enough to catch the horror on her face before I jump off the gurney and shove it violently in her direction, the heavy steel pinning her to the wall with a satisfying crack. She cries out as Jeff scampers off screeching, triggering an alarm as he goes. The hall is suddenly blaring with lights and chaotic sound. I spin around. Panicky-looking people in lab coats start streaming into the hall, but when they glimpse my blood-soaked neck and shirt—and the wilting girl sliding down the wall—they quickly disappear. The place, I note, is bright white and entirely unmarked. I have no idea how to get out of here. More important, I need to find a weapon.

Doll Hands is back for round two.

She shoves the gurney away from her in a jerky motion, struggling for air as she straightens. I watch her clasp a hand to her side as she fights to breathe, and I can’t help but grin at the sight.

“My bad. Did I break your ribs?”

“Drop dead,” she bites out.

“You first.”

“You’re deluded,” she says. “This is not a victory. You have no idea what they’ll do to you now.”

The sirens kick into higher gear, wailing with renewed vigor. It’s probably a matter of seconds before this place is swarmed.

“Look,” I say, shouting a little over the chaos. “I don’t love this situation, either. It feels really weird to hit a girl. But considering the fact that you just murdered me a minute ago, I think I’m entitled to retribution. So I’m giving you two options: show me how to get out of here, or hand over your knife.”

“Go to hell.”

“Did one of those broken ribs puncture a lung?” I ask, really smiling now. “Can you feel yourself dying?”

“Have you ever had your intestines ripped out of your body?” she says, her eyes flashing. “I hear it’s excruciating.”

“You have five seconds to decide,” I say, crossing my arms against my chest. “Five. Four. Three. Two— Fuck —”

I rear back as a searing pain sets fire to my arm. Apparently she chose option two: hand over her knife. I squeeze my eyes shut and yank the blade out of my shoulder, somehow managing to bite back a deluge of expletives.

“You have terrible aim,” I say, gritting my teeth as I wipe the weapon clean on my shirt. “The trick, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is to kill me instantaneously.” But when I look up at the girl, I can see why she threw the blade badly; she’s half-bent, holding on to the wall for support, her skin ashen. Still, I’m surprised by the look in her eyes. She doesn’t seem angry anymore.

She shakes her head, almost disappointed when she says, “Idiot.”

Then she retrieves a syringe from her pocket, bites off the cap with her teeth, and plunges the needle into her thigh. She nearly screams as she straightens, her chest heaving as she draws air into her lungs.

A thunder of footsteps echoes down the hall.

I turn, bloodied and confused, to discover a swarm of military personnel storming toward me. I mean, obviously this was going to happen—The Reestablishment wasn’t going to just let me walk out of here—but, damn. They’re aiming weapons in my direction I’ve never even seen. Huge, heavy, scary, neon shit. They look awesome. I want one.

“Rosabelle,” a voice booms.

A man detaches from the group and steps forward, and I’m so busy processing the fact that the serial killer is named something as soft as Rosabelle that I nearly miss the sight of his veiny metal arm. It also takes me a second to notice that he looks insane. Blue light glazes over his eyes, pulses at his temples, radiates across his bionic prosthetic. A feeling of unease prickles my skin.

Bad memories.

The Reestablishment once put my dad back together with similar sleek prosthetics. That sort of seamless limb regeneration was unheard of a decade ago, and while we still haven’t figured out how to replicate the tech precisely, it looks like it might be commonplace around here. Clearly, The Reestablishment has been advancing new levels of bioengineering, and, clearly, we’ve been underestimating their ability to progress in isolation. For over a decade we’ve been trying to prepare for whatever fresh hell they might be brewing out here, but our spy efforts fall short, over and over, because all our tech is built upon the entrenched systems and networks that they established.

The Reestablishment knows how to deactivate our satellites because they designed them; they know how to mess with our power plants because they built them; they know how to shut down our electrical grids because they engineered them. The civilians don’t seem to understand that outliers of The Reestablishment still live among us. When the regime fell, only the rarefied elite decamped to Ark Island. Only the highest-ranking, richest military families of The Reestablishment were even notified of the exit plan; they were the ones who could hop on private jets and avoid the fallout.

The rest of the sycophants stayed behind.

It’s never been easy to discern which of the “reformed” members of The Reestablishment might still be loyal to the old order. Many of them are now undercover agents dotted all over the globe, undermining us at every opportunity. Last year was more brutal than ever: there was a mysterious gas-line explosion at one of the elementary schools, and over a hundred kids died. It was one of the darkest days in our recent history; the nightmare is still embedded in my skin. We keep trying to explain to our own people that we’re being hacked and attacked, but it’s getting harder to convince people of these facts when The Reestablishment appears, by all outward appearances, to have gone totally dark.

All we know for certain is that we’re struggling.

These psychological operations are meant to turn the masses against us. People have short and fickle memories; too many are beginning to wonder whether life under The Reestablishment was better. Juliette is worried. Even Warner, who rarely shows emotion, seems stressed. He floated the idea of launching a covert mission into the Ark, but we all knew he wouldn’t leave Juliette in her condition.

So I came up with this genius plan: uncover something useful about the psychopaths out here, make it home alive, and, in the process, earn the respect of my friends and family. The problem is that no spy from the mainland has ever breached these borders and survived. I’d hoped I had the necessary skills to be the exception.

Looks like I was wrong.

The guy with the robot arm is striding toward me now, weapon raised. I’m running a few scenarios in my head, trying to do the necessary calculus to determine whether it’s worth stabbing this dude before he blasts a hole through my chest, when suddenly he slows. He studies me with those creepy eyes. Lowers his weapon.

“Incredible,” he says, his voice touched with awe. “You look so much like your father. What a shame that both of you should die such tragic deaths.” Then, tossing his gun blindly at Rosabelle: “Make it quick.”