Ultraxenopia (Project W. A. R. Book 1) (3 page)

My entire body goes still,
except for my heart, which now jumps into my throat, making it impossible to
breathe. My eyes dart back and forth, glancing between the two men seated on
either side of my mother.

Not just any men.
Enforcers.

The very last people I
could ever hope to encounter.

All three pairs of eyes are
fixed on me. Unblinking. Unmoving.

I know without asking why
they’re here.

I would like to say it
surprises me how quickly they’ve acted, but it doesn’t. They’re always quick.
They’re always efficient,
handling
anyone who might possibly pose a
threat.

But am I really a threat? I
just had a panic attack, that’s all. Sure, I didn’t finish my exam, but is that
really so bad?

I can tell that it’s as bad
as I fear when the Enforcers rise to their feet. My mother stands alongside
them, and it’s as if she’s a different person than the woman I’ve known these
past twenty-one years. As I stare at her, I’m taken aback by the cold distance
in her eyes. The way she looks at me . . .

I’ve only ever seen that
expression on her face once before.

“There’s nowhere to go,
Wynter,” she murmurs, her tone eerily calm. “Submit.”

My eyes widen, and those
feelings of fear and confusion hit me all over again, shattering my brief
illusion of invincibility. I shake my head in disbelief, my feet faltering
beneath me when I take a step back.

Something solid stands
behind me. Surprised, I turn around, only to find a third man I didn’t notice
before staring down at me. But he’s not an Enforcer. He’s someone else.

A stranger dressed in a
white laboratory coat.

I barely have time to react
before he plunges a syringe into the side of my neck.

My surroundings begin to
blur as everything around me goes hazy. Even my body feels weirdly heavy as if
gravity is trying to crush me to the ground. I can feel myself swaying. I try
to reach out to my mother, but she doesn’t reach back.

Help me,
I plead, but the words
don't pass my lips.

When my knees eventually
buckle beneath me, all I can hear is the sound of her voice.

“Do what you must,” she
says.

A GROAN RISES FROM MY throat as my
eyes sluggishly open. The light on the other side is excruciatingly bright, and
I can’t help but wince, lurching back as if I’ve been burned by a flame. I try,
time and again, to see past the glare, but my vision is bleary.

All I can make out is
white.

The plodding of footsteps
enters my range of hearing. They’re dull at first. Distant. Gradually growing
louder as I become more aware of the people around me. The trouble is that I
don’t know who they are. I don’t know why I’m here.

I don’t know where I am.

I try to make sense of the
last thing I remember. I see my mother. I see the two Enforcers as well as that
third unknown man. I can even recall the feel of the needle in my neck.
However, everything after that is lost in the hazy black hole of
unconsciousness—right up until the moment when I woke up here.

Wherever
here
is.

After a while, my vision
adjusts, bringing the room into focus one detail at a time. My entire body
feels groggy as I attempt to push myself up, but for some reason, I can barely
move. I try to shift each limb separately, but nothing happens. My every
movement is constricted.

Confused, I glance down,
and it’s only when I see the restraints that I’m actually able to feel them. My
heart begins to pound, nearly bursting from my chest as I pull against the
steel bands holding me in place. But nothing works. The restraints don’t budge.

I blink several times,
trying to get my erratic breathing under control. A feeling of panic washes
over me, and with each breath, I inch closer to what’s bound to be my breaking
point.

I very nearly reach that
point when I finally look around me.

A white hospital gown
clothes my body, which is strapped to a metal table in the middle of an
unfamiliar room. The table is nearly vertical, tilted just enough so that I can
only see the ceiling when I lean back. As I scan my surroundings, I notice that
aside from a small section of empty floor in front of me, the space is composed
of countless rows of machines—including a heart monitor beeping beside my head.

I swallow. The air catches
in my lungs and my eyes widen when I see the tubes protruding from my arms. A
surge of hysteria begins to rush through me, taking full command of my body.
Within seconds, I’m thrashing against the table like a wild animal being held
in captivity against its will.

The panic has taken over,
and the only thing I care about is getting out of here. I don’t need to know
why
I’m here. I don’t need to know what they’re doing to me.

I just need to get out.

“The subject is awake.”

I freeze as soon as I hear
the woman’s voice. Hesitantly, I look up. At least a dozen people, all wearing
white coats, stand in front of me—the same white coat as the one worn by the
man who drugged me before.

My confusion is
overwhelming, but the fear is even worse. My eyes dart between the many faces
staring back at me. They all seem overly interested—curious even. One man
scribbles down notes on a computerized tablet while a woman on my right grabs
something off a table. As she turns around, my heart drops when I see the
syringe in her hand.

She takes a step toward me,
and instinctively, I struggle against my restraints. But just like before,
nothing works. I’m completely powerless. I can’t even fight back when she
twists my arm and pushes the needle into the crook of my elbow.

I grimace, but the sharp
sting doesn’t last long. A deep red begins to flow from my vein into the
container attached to the syringe. I watch as she takes three vials worth of
blood, all the while refusing to look at me. Upon finishing, she removes the
needle and tapes a small bandage across my punctured skin.

She doesn’t say anything.
She doesn’t even glance at me. I’m still reeling from whatever I was injected
with before, so it takes an extreme amount of concentration to follow her
movements as she crosses the room.

I narrow my eyes, trying to
bring her blurred figure into focus. I observe her fingers tapping against the
surface of a table—a computer like the desktop I used at W. P. Headquarters.

A hologram screen
materializes above her head. She stares at the screen for a long moment, and I
squint my eyes to read the jumbled words. But I can’t see them clearly.

Her fingers tap a few more
times against the desktop before she turns to face an odd bowl positioned
beside her. It’s large and made of a steel-like metal, although it’s too far
away for me to see inside of it. A part of me feels certain that it wasn’t
there before, but then again, the drugs racing through my body are making it
difficult to be sure of anything. It doesn't matter either way. All I can do is
watch in muted horror as she pours the contents of one of the vials into the
metal container.

My heart pounds in
anticipation as she clicks her fingers against the computer once again, waiting
for something to happen.
Anything
that will indicate what the hell they
want with me.

Seconds pass, but it feels
like an eternity. Sweat beads along my skin, drenching the thin papery gown
that barely covers my body. My breaths reverberate in my ears, and I can feel
the metal bands chafing against my exposed flesh, leaving it red and raw.

I breathe in. A startled
gasp escapes my lungs when the bowl unexpectedly lifts off the table—defying
the very laws of gravity. It hangs motionless in the air for a brief moment,
until gradually, its exterior changes. The metal twists on itself, forming a
sphere and trapping the blood inside.

Immediately, the sphere
begins to spin, pulsing up and down as it rotates faster and faster. As it
does, a strange code manifests on the screen behind it. Line after line of
incomprehensible symbols. I try to make sense of them, but there’s nothing to
make sense of. I might as well be looking at a foreign language.

Yet, whatever the code
says, it must be important. I can tell that by the look on the woman’s face.
Her jaw is slightly dropped, and her lips are parted in such a way it’s as if
she’s holding her breath.

“Doctor,” she mutters. “You
need to see this.”

My eyebrows pull together
as a feeling of trepidation arises within me.

What is she seeing? What’s
wrong with me?

I try to swallow, but my
mouth and throat have gone dry. The bright light hanging above me is making me
nauseous, and I feel as if I might start retching at any moment.

I pull against my
restraints, hoping this time they might actually give. My teeth clench together
as I struggle to get free, but just like before, nothing happens.

I relax against the table
with a loud grunt of exasperation. Taking a few quick breaths, I prepare myself
to try again when I hear the faint sound of footsteps close beside me. My body
goes rigid until I’m absolutely still—every part of me, except for my racing
heart.

Nervously, I glance up, and
I can’t contain my shock when I see who those footsteps belong to.

He’s young—no older than
his early thirties, if that—and he’s tall, with light auburn-brown hair that’s
been parted neatly to the side. Rectangular, thin-rimmed glasses frame
perceptive gray eyes. Yet, despite appearing younger than every one of his
colleagues, it’s obvious he holds a higher position than all of them.

He places his hand on the
desk, mere inches away from where the metal sphere continues to spin. After a
moment, he leans forward. His eyes never blink as he stares at the screen. The
woman looks up at him, her expression still twisted in disbelief. I watch her
lips when they begin to move, and I strain my ears in response, desperate to
hear what she’s saying to him.

“Her blood type,” she
whispers in a hushed voice to the man. “It’s . . .
changing
.”

I may not know much about
science, or anything medical having to do with the human body, but I know
enough to be fairly certain that what she’s saying isn’t possible. Not
naturally at least.

I gape at the man, but he
doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even seem to react to this news. His eyes
simply follow the code for a while, his fingers rubbing his chin as if deep in
thought.

When the process is finally
complete, the sphere stops spinning and sinks back to the desktop, landing with
a soft thud against the glass surface. Within seconds of touching down, the
metal shifts until it’s once again nothing more than a silver bowl filled with
blood.

The man straightens up, but
his hand remains planted on his chin. Everyone in the room watches him in
silence, as if waiting for him to speak.

Including me.

“Fascinating,” is all he
says.

Without warning, he looks
over at me, and my heart rate increases when his lips curl into a smile. For
some reason, his expression is unnerving.

He begins to move toward
me, his footsteps echoing off the floor—the sound growing louder as the
distance between us shrinks. His gaze never leaves mine.

Stopping just in front of
me, he flashes a kind smile. “Hello, Wynter,” he murmurs. “My name is Dr. Richter.
I’ll be taking care of you.”

Taking care of me?

“Why am I here?” I breathe.
My voice is shaky, and the dryness in my throat is apparent in each raspy word.
“What are you going to do to me?”

“Shh, hush now,” he
whispers. “All of your questions will be answered in time.”

He smiles once again, only
breaking eye contact with me to glance down at his hand. I follow his gaze, the
fear re-emerging when I see him pull a syringe from the depths of his coat
pocket. His eyes flash back to mine, and I know he can sense my fear as well as
the piercing screams tightly lodged in my throat.

“But for now,” he croons as
he injects the syringe into one of the tubes in my right arm, “you must sleep.”

He takes a step away from
me, that disconcerting expression still plastered across his face. I try to say
something, but I can barely get out a single word before I feel the effects of
the liquid as it enters my system. It rushes through me like a cold chill.

I want to fight against it,
but it’s hopeless.

As the drowsiness returns
to pull me under yet again, the doctor’s smile is all I can see.