by Lan Chan
“What the hell are you doing to me?”
They ignored me completely. The doctor, Raj, flicked some dials on the machine beside Izzy. A second later, the world spun and I had to close my eyes to keep from throwing up.
“Stop it!” Abigail screamed. “You’re going to kill her!”
“Do we really need the child?” I heard Claudia say. “All she’s done is whinge and moan. I’m getting sick of hearing it.”
“We need her to keep Willow alive long enough for the transfusion to complete,” the senator said. “After that, you can do whatever you like to them.”
“Fine. You have forty minutes. The rioting isn’t going to last forever. We need to be long gone.” Her boots pounded across the room. I couldn’t help thinking what would have happened if Selina were still alive.
Inside my head, Abigail wailed in alarm. I tried to send soothing messages and images to her but they bounced off her like raindrops on a duck’s back. She wasn’t stupid, that was for sure. She’d seen a lot more than most kids her age and I wasn’t doing her any favours by trying to coddle her at a time like this.
It’s okay, I tried to reason instead. I swear I’ll get us out of this somehow.
In response she sent me a barrage of images that challenged me to contradict her certainty that we were going to definitely die. By rights, the nanobots in my body meant I should have woken up well before her. Instead, what I saw from the recollection in her mind was the image of me being stuck with successive syringes and carried through a series of tunnels underneath some abandoned warehouses until they reached this room. I didn’t recognise the warehouses but the land around it was desolate. We could be anywhere outside of Melbourne.
What really got my attention were the dozens of guards stationed in the warehouses above ground. Abigail’s memory had blanked out their faces, but in her thoughts they were all classified as the same. They were all bad men who terrified her beyond words. And hadn’t this stunt proved her paranoia had a solid basis?
Her hands trembled against my shoulder. It wasn’t until I heard her teeth chattering that it occurred to me she might be cold. I was used to the atmosphere because of the way the nightmare played on me. Any time I saw medical equipment or operating tables, my body automatically conditioned me to be cold.
“Hey!” My breath condensed in the air. That wasn’t a coincidence. The doctor approached Izzy and repositioned her so that she lay on her back. He checked the IV in her arm and then did the same for me. As he got closer to secure the strap around my shoulders, I bucked against my reins and snarled at him. His yellow-rimmed eyes blinked rapidly. The good doctor jumped a mile. A white bottle slipped out of the side pocket of his lab coat and scattered pills on my table and then all over the floor as it rolled off.
“Shit!” He fumbled around trying to get the pills back in the bottle. Not before Abigail’s hand moved from my shoulder to snatch at a couple of pills rolling close beside my ear.
“Abby, don’t!”
Too late. She dry-swallowed them and then made a choking sound. “Yuck. Not lollies.”
Why did you take them? I snapped in her mind when her hand came back to my shoulder.
Through our mental connection, I registered the tears thick in her throat. I’m hungry, she projected. I want to go home. Buried within that statement was everything she refused to say because she’d been taught to keep her mouth shut at times like these. I could see so much of myself in her steadfast refusal to break down in tears.
When he was done picking up the Second Sight and replacing the bottle in his pocket, the doctor returned to the machine hooked up to Izzy and turned a dial. The whoosh of a generator interrupted the quiet coldness of the room. A second later, my stomach felt like it was dropping out from inside of me. Within the confines of the anti-psi bracelet, the electricity whirled as though caught in the death grip of a storm. The temperature dropped so rapidly that my breath turned into shards of ice. Slowly but surely, the electricity began to recede as though all the energy was being leached from it.
My teeth chattered and my eyelids drooped. Senator Collins returned. “Okay, Abigail,” he said. In his hands was a hotdog in a bun. “Do what I explained to you earlier and I’ll let you eat.”
Despite the delicious scent of the food, Abigail turned her head away. It’s okay, I told her. Just do what he wants.
She shook her head but a sob escaped her. My focus locked on to the senator’s grimacing top lip. I was going to rip his head off with my bare hands when I got out of here. If I got out of here.
“Abigail,” the senator repeated.
This time I spoke aloud. “Do what he wants, Abby. I’ll be okay.”
That was what I thought anyway, before she relented and the impact of what I was agreeing to really hit me. Through our physical contact, Abigail fed me her telepathy. The nanobots absorbed the energy greedily and the spike of electricity made my body jerk. A surge of blood coursed through the tube in my arm and ran along the length of the IV until it disappeared into Izzy’s body. Every second that drifted by, her colouring improved. Rosettes bloomed on her cheeks and she inhaled like someone who was drowning. Her back arched against the bed.
It was like a car accident I couldn’t bear to turn away from, even though the scene would leave a nightmarish imprint in my mind for the rest of my life. They were trying to do a full blood transfusion. Somehow they’d gotten it into their heads that my blood and the nanobots were compatible with Izzy. They wanted the secrets of whatever had been done to me without the drawback of having to do years of research to figure it out.
“It’s not going to work,” I choked out. “You’re going to end up killing both of us.”
Izzy turned her head in my direction. For the first time, she was strong enough to speak. “It will work. It has worked already. Why should you be the only one to benefit? When we’re done with you, I’ll be able to regenerate myself and we’ll make as many espers as we want. This world isn’t yours for the taking anymore.”
In her eyes I saw the very same conviction that made Abigail and me as prickly as we were about our physical conditions. There was a part of me that admired her resolve. Mostly, though, I just thought she was bat crap crazy. It never occurred to her that as a Whisper, she was just as much a part of the problem as the espers.
No longer constrained by the fear of being caught out, I tried to reason with her. “Have you been getting migraines? Losing control of your emotions for no reason? It’s because the Second Sight is mutating your cells to try and replicate a hospitable environment. It’s trying to turn your DNA into mine!”
I didn’t help my cause by trying to struggle free. My efforts were less than useless. The blood was draining out of me at an alarming rate. Abigail tried to pull away, but Claudia came up behind her. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but a moment later, Abigail’s fingers were curled around my shoulder once more. The material of my shirt clung to the bench where my sweat was turning to ice.
“Give her another dose,” the senator commanded Abigail. Inside our minds, I felt Abigail’s temper flare. I locked down the part of her mind that wanted to turn around and slap him in the face. There was no way that was going to happen. Not with the gun he had pointed at her back.
As soon as I tried to erect the wall, a thousand little whispers of my own thoughts fluttered through to me. What the—? Then I remembered the Second Sight she’d eaten.
My mind opened up to receive the return of the nanobots, and in that instant, Abigail saw the vital link that was cut off on my end by the anti-psi bracelets around my wrists. Without asking, she reached out and touched the link.
No! I gritted my teeth, ready for the backlash to eject her from my mind. Instead, the link shimmered and changed colour. The green of Zeke’s energy ebbed away slowly to be replaced by copper laced with gold.
Unable to focus on what was happening inside our minds and my body shutting down at the same time, my eyes closed. Somebody struck me hard ac
ross the face. The fresh pain drew a snarl from my lips but it didn’t take the edge from my fatigue.
“Do it again,” the senator said. This time, the flood of energy burned away the edges of my tiredness. In its wake, Abigail was inside my mind. Where she wouldn’t allow herself to cry aloud, in my head she sobbed with such terrible despair that it almost tore my slow-beating heart out of my cheat.
Beside us, Izzy’s head turned from side to side. The fingers on her left hand flexed. It had a ripple effect that trickled through to the rest of her body. One by one her limbs contorted. She tested the muscles by curling her legs beneath her. Out of her lips came a satisfied purr. It was like watching a psychopathic marionette doll come to life. And I was pretty sure that she was going to end up strangling us with the strings she cut off herself.
39
If we ever got out of this, I promised myself that I would never second-guess something Abigail said to me again. She’d tried to warn us. She’d told us that Izzy was a ghost but Ryan and I had thought she was just frightened of the care home at night.
Through the link, I felt Abigail’s longing. Even though what was happening would probably end up killing both of us, it didn’t change the fact that Izzy was now lying with her legs pointed straight up into the air like she was just doing yoga after a hard day.
I want to walk too. The thought slipped from Abigail’s mind before she could catch hold of it. Instead, the senator prodded her in the back once more.
The flood of telepathic energy was becoming less productive. Or was that because there were fewer nanobots in my body? The skin I could see on my arms was grey. Each vein popped out starkly against my wrist. The hollow feeling I had whenever I overused energy was nothing compared to the sick roiling inside me that set the world on fire all around me.
“It won’t be too long now,” the doctor said. I heard the rattle of pills. How utterly unsavoury to be taking Second Sight at a time like this.
Abigail’s mind retreated inside the vital link. I found her there. Her energy manifested as a tiny copper ball humming in the corner. Like a child hugging herself and singing to keep the monsters at bay. There were no more words of comfort left that I thought she would believe. I could barely move my body and my blood was being leached out of me. The electricity that I had come to rely so heavily upon had been tamed. As much as I refused to think it, my time was probably up. But I would die ten times over before I gave up trying to find a way to get her out of here.
I let the last of my energy curl around hers in the hope that it might give her strength. As we touched, she pushed an image at me that stole the last ounce of my willpower. In her memory, she was in Ryan’s arms being carried back to her room at the care facility.
He crouched down in front of her once she was settled on the bed with her unresponsive legs hanging over the edge. His bright blue eyes peered out from a face that glowed with adoration for her.
“You want me to stay?” he asked, tracing the apple of her cheek with his thumb.
She shook her head. “I’m sleepy.”
A strange look passed over his face. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was surprise. She allowed herself to flop on her back and Ryan repositioned her so her head rested on her pillow.
“I’m not going to be back for a few weeks.”
“That’s this many.” She held up one hand with two fingers in a V shape. His chuckle broke me apart and put me back together again. When his lips touched the pads of her fingers I almost felt their memory against my lips.
“I’m sorry I have to keep going away,” he said.
She snuggled against his palm. Her face was sticky with processed sugar. “That’s okay. The Bad Girl will come for me if I get scared now.” She tapped her head and I realised the memory was from just after we had our outing to the ice cream parlour.
“I’ll always come back for you, Abby. You know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t have time to tell him she knew before she fell asleep.
The memory faded but it would forever leave an impression on my heart. Not because of what had happened but because somewhere deep inside she was disappointed that he hadn’t come. It was selfish but that was how she felt. I knew because that was how I felt when Mum wasn’t there after Dad was murdered. That was how I felt when Omega tried to cut me open and she didn’t show up to save me. That was how I felt now that I was going to die, even though I was pretty sure she was probably dead too.
As a child, I had convinced myself beyond doubt that she would always come for me no matter what happened. And with every disappointment, I told myself I hated her even more. The anger twisted and boiled until I wanted to tear into something with my bare hands. What actually happened was Abigail’s foot connecting with the leg of the metal table. I might have thought we were both imagining it if she didn’t cry out in pain before she bit her lip to keep from calling attention to herself.
Through her eyes, we both stared at the offending leg in astonishment. In my memory, I heard Lily wondering what would happen if someone like Abigail took Second Sight. It made no sense because Moore and every other esper who had taken the drug ended up being drained of their life force.
I searched every crevice of Abigail’s mind for signs of degradation but found none. What I settled on instead was the copper glow of the vital link. It sparked there like a beam of pure energy between us. My mind cast back to the second the nanobots decided Oz was a threat and tried to kill him. They had made contact with Zeke’s shield first. The instant they recognised his thought signature, the bots dispersed rather than hurt him. It was almost as though they marked a person.
That was exactly it. The link was a construct the nanobots used to identify minds that weren’t mine but which they deemed safe. I imagined Abigail and Zeke could take as much Second Sight as they wanted and it wouldn’t bother them at all.
Try and wiggle your toes, I asked Abigail. She did so with ease.
Her delight filtered through the link to me as small sparks that felt like being zapped by static electricity.
I can walk. The ardent hope in her tone didn’t make me as happy as it should have. Whatever this was, it was temporary. She’d taken a pretty big dose of Second Sight for someone of her size. Even if we escaped, it wasn’t as though we could continue producing the drug for her benefit.
Whoever engineered me was some kind of next-level genius. There were no two ways about that. When I finally found them, I was going to plant my fist squarely in their face. For now, I needed to stay alive. What we needed was more Second Sight. The only problem was that this idiot doctor was the only one who had any.
With the anti-psi tech in place, if Abigail stopped touching me, our minds would separate. I didn’t know how we were going to pull this off without getting one or both of us shot. While my brain whirred, Izzy pulled herself up into a sitting position. She swung her legs over the side of the table and picked gingerly at the needle in her arm.
“How does it feel?” she asked. “Sucks, doesn’t it? To have to lie there unable to move while people gawk at you like you can’t see them just because you’re paralysed.”
Ah. So she’d recognised me from the care facility. I tried to speak but my throat was closed over from the cold and the energy drain.
“How do you feel?” the doctor asked her.
Izzy curled her hands into fists and unfurled them demonstratively. Her tongue stuck out between her teeth. I knew what she was going to try and do before the minuscule sparks of electricity began to feather over the skin of her palms. Eagerly, I waited for the inevitable come down. The show didn’t go on for long.
When it stopped with her gasping for breath as her flushed face twisted in pain, I reached out to Abigail.
Ours was a ridiculous plan with almost no chance of succeeding, but it was all we had and Abigail latched on to it with enthusiasm. Not least because a big part of the plan involved her using her legs.
The senator abandoned his pos
t immediately to go to Izzy’s side. I couldn’t help but think of Mum’s assertions that loving people was usually a weakness. In the past I’d scoffed at her. Now I was going to use it as our way out. With the senator distracted, Abigail leaped off her chair and grabbed his wrist.
One hand on him and me, she opened her mind to create a mental bridge between us. Izzy’s mouth opened to shout a warning, but the fury in me was already unleashing. All of the pent-up rage from just this short stint of being incapacitated surged through the link Abigail made and slammed into the senator’s mind.
He screamed and clutched at his head. Abigail took that as her cue to run. It was such a shame she was disabled because she was quick. Even before the senator’s knees buckled, she was across the room and turning the bolt on the metal door, locking it.
The doctor gaped, unsure what was happening. All I could manage was a smile before Izzy was on top of me. Her once-useless fingers winched around my throat. Electricity buzzed between us. The IV tore out of both our arms, trickling blood in globs that burst as they hit the floor.
“What are you doing?” I heard the doctor shout and then a sound as though he was gargling water in his throat. In my peripheral, Abigail had jumped on his back. With her arms around his throat, she was probably attacking him mentally.
That was all I saw before the dots were skidding across my vision again. Izzy’s lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace so vile she really did resemble the ghost she’d been nicknamed. A sound between a frustrated scream and a growl emanated from her throat. Those bony fingers of hers cinched tighter until I could no longer make any sound in my throat. Sparks of electricity ignited and faded, caught between two Whispers who shouldn’t have been able to contain them. Every time a spark coursed across her fingers, it fizzled uselessly through my body. She didn’t register that she was making me stronger even as she was choking the life out of me.
Something heavy pounded at the closed door. It would be mere seconds before they broke in. When they did, there would be no way for Abigail and me to protect ourselves. As my eyes fluttered while my brain screamed for oxygen, I gave Izzy the last smile that I could. Something about it sent her rage racing over the edge of insanity. The electricity built up to near uncontainable proportions.