Specimen (14 page)

Questions are screamed into my ears between every shock.  When I stay silent, I’m placed back in the box and the water covers me again.  Escape scenarios cycle through my head, but they become slower and slower, the loops more frequent.  The impulses become disjointed and begin to lose all meaning as I struggle to keep breathing.  Several hours later, they bring me back to the chair.  When they get nothing from me, it’s back to the box.

Over and over and over again.

I lose track of time.  I’m so cold, I can’t feel my skin anymore—I only feel sensation deeper down, in my muscles and bones.  The burning pain in my chest is the only part of me that feels warm.  I can feel the cold in my head, too.  I almost welcome the shocks just because they warm me briefly.

My mind is foggy.  It’s difficult to think at all though I realize they’ve stopped asking me questions.  They drag me back to the box; I can’t even walk anymore.  The rumble of the pump starts up, and the cold water hits my back again.  I squeeze my eyes shut and slump against the side as the water reaches the tops of my thighs.  It won’t be long before I have to hold myself up again.

When the water reaches my chest, I hear voices.  At first, I can’t make out the words, but then the volume of one voice increases, and I am able to understand.

“What’s going on here?  Where’s the specimen?”  The voice is on the other side of the warehouse, but I can still detect the deep timbre of an older man.

Murmured voices respond.  I tilt my head back despite the protest of my neck as the water covers my chin.

“What?” the voice shouts.

“We’re just doing our jobs, sir!”

“Are you out of your mind? Get him out of there!”

I hear quick footsteps approach me, but the light shining down on me is too bright to see anything.  The hum of the pump goes silent, and the water around me recedes.  The light is knocked away, but all I can see are spots in my eyes as hands grab for my shoulders and pull me from the box.

I fall to the floor, still curled in a ball.  My limbs won’t stretch out.  In fact, I can’t move at all; I can barely breathe.  I’m frozen beyond shivering, and my brain feels slow and nonresponsive.  Brief instructions roll though my head, encouraging me to move, flee, fight, get out—but I’m unable to do anything.

“Get me a blanket.”  It’s the same voice again—the one that told them to get me out.  I can’t open my eyes enough to see who he is.

Rough cloth covers me, and my head is lifted slightly before something is placed beneath it.  I’m beyond exhausted.  Impulses in my head continue to tell me to fight and get away, but I can’t even open my eyes.

Everything fades to darkness and silence.

“Can you hear me?”

I feel a hand on my shoulder.  I haven’t been out long, and I still can’t move.  I’m so incredibly cold.  I’m sure if I were to be picked up and dropped to the ground, my body would shatter into a thousand pieces.

A hand wraps around the back of my neck and lifts my head.  Something is pressed to my lips, and water flows into my mouth and trickles down my chin.  I start to choke, then quickly force myself to swallow.

I’m lowered back to the ground.  The sharp pain in the center of my chest has been reduced to a throbbing ache, but I have almost no sense of the rest of my body.

“Get Anna in here.”

My mind drifts.

*****

There’s an arm across my chest, holding me against the wall of the barn.

“Galen!  Galen, please!  Make them stop!  Please, Galen!”

I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will help my struggles.  I’m punched in the gut again and again.  I hear laughter and groaning.  I hear her screams.

There’s nothing I can do.

*****

Something warm and wet is being dragged across my forehead.  There’s a sweet, distinct scent filling my nose.  My temples throb as my mind tries to make meaning of the smell.

“Riley,” I groan.

I grab at the wrist near my head and hear a soft, female gasp as I tighten my grip on it.  The wrist is thin and bony.  The texture of the skin isn’t quite right.  As I inhale again, the scent isn’t the same as it was a moment ago.

Still, I keep my grip tight even as I feel fingers try to pry mine away.

“I can’t help you if you don’t release my hand.”  The voice is definitely female but not Riley’s.  In the back of my head, I knew it wasn’t Riley from the moment I touched her, but it’s the first female contact I’ve had—the closest I’ve felt to having Riley beside me again.  The scent isn’t the same but still distinct and enticing.

I open my eyes.  They must be somewhat swollen shut because I can’t open them very much.  I force myself to focus on the woman crouched over me.  She’s in her mid-forties with short black hair and bright blue eyes.  I slowly release her wrist, and she goes back to dragging the cloth over my head.

I glance down at myself.  I’m partially covered with a blanket but still naked.  There are bruises and burns everywhere.  Hardly any unmarred skin is visible.

“I’m Anna,” the woman says.  “You try to relax for me, okay?  I’m just going to finish getting you cleaned up.  I’ve got to disinfect the cuts, so there will be a bit of a sting.”

She runs something over my head, and the liquid does burn slightly, but the sting doesn’t compare to all the other pain.  My vision blurs and my head lolls to one side.  I try to swallow, but I can’t.  It’s too much effort.

“How is he doing?”  The voice is muffled, the words jumbled together.  I can’t see who’s speaking.

“The burns are bad,” Anna says, “but he’s healing faster than anyone I’ve ever seen before.  There really isn’t a lot I can do for him except to use common sense medicine.  He needs rest.  He needs nourishment.  He’s also beginning to show signs of withdrawal.  I don’t know how often he was being injected with TST.  Errol may have a better idea.”

“Are you suggesting we somehow get him that drug?”

“I’m suggesting that he’s likely to go through some serious withdrawal.  It may be a couple of weeks, but once the drugs are out of his system, we’ll know more.”

“Riley,” I mumble as consciousness fades.  “I need Riley.”

*****

I wake slowly.  I’m on a cot with a blanket tucked around my neck and a flat, stiff pillow underneath my head.  I have no idea how long I’ve been out, but I’m sure it has been many hours, maybe longer.  I wince as I force my legs to straighten out, and a shooting pain flashes through my chest before dissipating into my shoulders and arms.

I’ve been dressed in beige leggings and a shirt, both made from soft, thin linen.  I can see slightly faded bruises on my hands.  As I push the sleeve up, I see my arm, too, is covered in them.  From the way I feel, I figure my whole body must be back and blue.

I’m beyond exhausted.

I turn my head to get a better sense of my surroundings.  I’m in a small room with a barred door.  Aside from the cot, there is a plastic chair up against the wall and a toilet in the corner.  The rest of the room is bare.

A prison cell.

I should force myself out of the bed and try to break the bars or the lock on the door, but I have no will.  I can’t even manage to sit up.  My neck is itchy, and when I touch the spot behind my right ear, I can feel something there—a small, hard, metallic square, maybe a chip of some kind.  The embedded object is less than a centimeter square and almost flush against my skin.

I’ve been conscious for barely a minute before I hear a scraping sound, and a man enters the room.  He’s grey-haired and portly with a thick beard and round glasses.  There’s a large canvas sack in his hand.

“Glad to see you finally woke up,” he says.

I know the voice.  It is the same one that told the others to get me out of the box.  He places the sack on the chair and comes to the side of the cot.  I tense reflexively.

“Let’s see if we can get you upright,” he says.

His voice is kind, but I don’t trust it.  He helps me to a sitting position, reaches into the canvas sack, and pulls out a small paper bag which he hands to me.  Inside is a bottle of water and something wrapped in aluminum foil.  I hesitate.

“If I were going to poison you, I would just inject it in your arm,” he says as he drags the chair closer to me and sits.  “Come on, you need a little strength back.”

His words make sense.

Inside the foil is a flour tortilla wrapped around slices of meat and cheese.  There are even small pieces of fresh lettuce inside.  I take a small bite of it and start to chew.  The taste and texture are amazing—delicious in their simplicity.  The taste is also familiar though I have no memory of ever eating anything outside of the liquid nutrition Riley provided for me.  Swallowing is difficult, and the act of chewing feels almost unnatural.

“Satisfying, isn’t it?”  The older man smiles at me.  “There’s nothing quite like eating actual food, is there?”

I don’t respond though I do agree with him.  The tortilla is a little dry, but the moisture in the lettuce makes up for the staleness.  Its crunching sound fills my ears, triggering some memory deep inside of me, but I can’t quite reach it.

“Maybe those liquid diets give you the nutrients you need, but it just isn’t the same.  We grow the lettuce hydroponically, right here in this building.  Sorry the tortillas aren’t all that fresh.  There’s been a shortage.”

I finish the wrap and drink half the bottle of water.  My throat feels a little better though everything else aches.  I look down and see bandages around my ankles.  When I shift my weight, I can feel other bandages on my thighs, upper arms, and chest.

“I’ve been rude,” he says.  “I haven’t even introduced myself.  My name is Merle.  Back in the day, I was a history professor at one of the finest universities in Carson City.  Now I assist where I can, mostly with the development of alternative growing techniques but also with this division of the CA war effort.”

He watches my face, but I only stare at the bottle in my hands.  I have nothing to say to him.

“Do you know your name?” he asks.  He waits a moment before giving up on getting an answer.  “You don’t have to speak.  I’m not going to ask you a lot of questions.  Frankly, I probably know more about you than you do.”

I glance at him.  I’m wary, to say the least.  The whole good cop, bad cop scenario is all too obvious, even if my implants aren’t functioning right.

“Don’t believe me, huh?”  He chuckles and leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

For a long moment, he just looks at me.  I finish the water and keep holding the bottle, turning it slowly in my hands.  I watch the leftover droplets as they slide around on the inside.

I could reach out and break his neck.  Despite how sore I am, I’m sure I could kill him before he has a chance to react.  What I don’t see is any advantage in the act.  Others would follow him, and even if I killed them all, I would still be in a cell.  Filling the cell with dead bodies won’t make it less confining.

Merle lets out a sigh.  I glance at him, and he begins to speak.

“You were born Galen Michael Braggs,” he says.  “Your mother was Bethany Clayborn-Braggs.  She passed away when you were six years old—a heart disorder of some kind.  You, your father, Michael Jason Braggs, and your sister, Amelia Jane, lived on a farm in the Carson Alliance territories.”

For a second, I think my heart actually stops beating.  Amelia.  I know the name.  In my soul, I know it’s the name of my sister.  I stare at Merle.  He must see the shock in my eyes because he nods knowingly.

“You know some of this,” he says.

It’s not a question, and I don’t answer it as if it were.  He doesn’t seem to require a response anyway.

“Not everything you’ve been told should be taken as truth,” he says.  “You were brought to Mills for a specific reason, and they’d tell you anything to encourage your cooperation.”

I narrow my eyes at him.  Most of the information I’ve received came directly from Riley.  She wouldn’t lie to me.

She took your memories.

I ignore the thought.

“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Merle says, “but can I tell you the story anyway?  I don’t get much of a chance to teach history anymore.”

His smile is genuine, but I keep my guard up.  He leans back in the chair, crosses one leg over his knee, and starts his tale.

“I won’t go into the whole comet thing,” he says.  “No one is disputing what started all of this.  It simply comes back to one primary conflict: food becoming scarce very quickly and what should be done about it.  The technical and health industries wished to focus on alternate food sources, and the education and agriculture industries wanted to restore the land and get back to their roots, so to speak.”

He pauses and rubs his chin with two fingers as he looks me in the eye.

“It’s all economics, you realize—who stood to gain the most money and power.  None of the major corporations were really interested in the general populous.  They were interested in their own profits.  When they started to merge in order to gain more influence, Carson and Mills came out on top.  Everyone else was absorbed—polarized into one of two mindsets.”

I know most of this though the perspective is skewed.  I have no doubt that both sides were focused on money and power, but I can’t help but think of Riley’s father being murdered for spreading his viewpoint.

“Now, let’s get back to your personal history,” he says.  “Mills knew they couldn’t provide for all their people without some level of agriculture, despite the rhetoric they told the public.  Even though the land in your area was practically devastated, it was the first place they invaded.”

He leans forward again.

“Despite whatever you’ve been told or whatever you may
think
you believe, Mills Conglomerate was responsible for the first attack—the first real act of war.  Negotiations for land in exchange for technology fell apart, and Mills took matters into their own hands.”

“And Peter Hudson had Robert Grace executed for speaking his mind.”

A tight-lipped smile spreads across his face.

“Is that what you think?”

“That’s what I know.”

His face lights up with understanding.

“Your doctor, the one who transformed you…she’s Riley Grace, isn’t she?”

I don’t answer him.  I’m not even sure why I’ve spoken at all.  Somehow I have managed to give him information without even saying much of anything.  My instincts to stay quiet were right from the beginning.

“She is,” he says softly.  “I can understand why you believe that, then.  She probably believes it herself.”

I look away from him.  I can’t believe I was stupid enough to open my mouth.

They already knew about Riley.

A memory strikes me quickly.  The men who were torturing me—they knew her name already.  Merle is trying to make me believe he’s figured something out, but he’s known the whole time.

I glare at him.

“I should get back to your story,” he says.  “That’s what you need to hear.  Would you like some more water first?”

I don’t answer.  He claims to be thirsty himself and pulls two more bottles from the canvas bag.  He puts one on the floor near my feet and opens the other one before he continues.

“After the first invasion, your father refused to hand over the crops to the Mills Conglomerate.  They hung him in the public square to make an example of him, and you were left to care for the farm and your sister alone.”

My heart begins to race.  Could he be telling the truth?  I have nothing to go on save the few memories from dreams I can’t confirm.  He definitely has my attention now.

Merle continues.

“After your father’s death, you and your sister were allowed back to the land your family had farmed for generations, now under the control of the Mills Conglomerate.  You were forced to sign a loyalty oath to Mills, just like all the other farming families.  You agreed to farm what they told you to farm, and in return, they said you would be protected from further harm.”