by D. S. Murphy
I loosened my grip when my vision brightened. I thought it was the white light again, but it was something else. I could see everything. My eyes were like micro and macro lenses all at once. I could take in the entire scene around me, but when I focused on one thing, I saw it in perfect detail. I saw all the windows of the school office and knew which teachers were at their desk and what they were doing. I saw thirty students in the near vicinity, and could tell what brand of sneakers they were wearing and how long ago they’d bought them. Most of them were turning towards us, pulling out cellphones. I didn’t want to get called into the office. Not again. Not now.
Melissa squirmed and I dropped her arm.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“You kissed Greg. But it meant nothing, he came to my house right after he was with you, and told me everything. I know how to satisfy him.”
I don’t know how I knew she was lying. Maybe the way she lifted her eyebrow, or the desperation and loneliness in her eyes. A swirling green cloud of toxic energy surrounded her like a halo. I looked around and realized nearly everyone had an aura of some kind. My vision blurred like a watercolor.
“Finish her!” One of Melissa’s friends shouted from the steps. There was a crowd now, egging Melissa on. They wanted to see me hurt, defeated. I saw Melissa’s upper lip twitch and knew she was going to throw another punch before she’d even started moving. I stepped back and slapped her arm away, but her momentum carried her forward and she wrapped her arms around my waist, tackling me to the ground. She grabbed my hair and jerked my head back into the concrete. My eyes bulged with rage as pain coursed through my head.
“Enough!” I shouted. My eyes felt like they were on fire. Melissa froze, with one fist raised, ready to strike. But it never came down. Her expression had gone slack, and her mouth hung open. Her pupils were wide, gazing directly at me like a deer in headlights.
“Get off me,” I said.
Melissa stood up, still maintaining eye contact, but said nothing. I got up and brushed myself off. We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. I wondered if this was some kind of weird mind game. I was relieved when David came up to us, standing next to me.
“Everything okay here?” he asked.
“She attacked me,” I said.
David waved his hand slowly in front of Melissa’s face, but got no reaction. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me away.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered. I shut them and he led me around the corner of the building, and into a side entrance through the music room. We looped around and hid in the science lab.
“We can’t sell the app,” I said quickly, when we were alone. “Something’s wrong. I’m broken.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.” I told David about the strange side effects at the dance, and the permanent changes to my appearance. When I started describing what I’d seen, he perked up and asked questions.
“What color were Melissa’s shoes? How many cars were in the parking lot?” I scoffed at first, but then I realized I actually knew the answers. I could see it all in my mind, in perfect detail.
David wanted to run some tests before saying anything, so he took my blood and ran it through his chemistry set, then examined several glass slides through the microscope.
His eyes widened and he looked at me with surprise.
“This is... unexpected.”
“What is it? What’s wrong with me?”
“The nanobots are programmed to protect you, your health, your life. I think, since you were using mods on your face, mostly your eyes, some of the nanobots have become permanently fused with your ocular cells. It’s affected your vision. How do you feel right now?” He asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Like myself again.”
He nodded. “When I found you, your eyes were ultraviolet, and wide. Your pupils looked like black holes. I think something happened to you at the dance. The stress, the embarrassment—it made your bots go into battle mode somehow and added an extra level of protection. But only when you get excited. It increases your spatial awareness and field perception. Enhanced vision. Maybe even photographic memory.”
“But what about Melissa?”
“I think you accidentally hypnotized her.”
“What?” I asked.
“You said you saw her emotions, and knew what she was going to do. I think, with your eyes open like that, making direct eye contact with her, you somehow put her into a trance state.”
“But that’s impossible,” I said.
“Actually,” David said, “it’s within the realm of possibility. Cobras hypnotize their prey.”
“I’m not a cobra, and I’m certainly not a predator.”
“Humans can do it too. Hypnosis is a state of highly focused concentration, associated with relaxation and suggestibility. And some people are capable of total recall, though it’s rare. Somehow the bots plugged into dormant abilities in your DNA and upgraded your default settings, in order to protect you.”
“So I’m stuck with this?” I asked, frowning. I didn’t like the idea of rogue robots in my body, rewriting my code.
David looked at me in confusion.
“I know it may seem scary right now, but you basically just became super human. The other stuff,” he said, waving at my face, “it was all cosmetic. Superficial. This is an enhanced ability. It’s unexpected, but not unwelcome.”
“I don’t want to be a lab rat,” I said, crossing my arms. “And I’m not a superhero. This is dangerous. We can’t release the app if it can cause irreparable, unplanned damage to people. We have to tell someone.”
“Let’s speak to the group first,” David said. “They should be the first to know. Let’s find out if anyone else is experiencing symptoms. In the meantime, we need to stick with plan. What if this is what Todd is after? Maybe he wanted to buy us out before we realized what we really had. He was right about one thing though, we need funding. I didn’t want to tell the others, but we’re basically running advanced tech through a patched network... it’s volatile. One way or another, this thing could go south quickly. It’s important we start to get the word out, to control the narrative.”
After school, I just wanted to get home. I’d started riding my mom’s bike to school, since I gave my skateboard to Megan. It meant I had to actually pay attention to my surroundings, but it helped take my mind off other things. It was a simple distraction, and afforded me a few minutes of peace. I was almost home when the phone rang.
“Hello, is this Brianna Hartmond?”
“That’s me,” I said, pulling over the curb. I got off my bike and pushed it forward while holding the phone up to my ear.
“This is Susan Miles from GWN news. We’d like to run a piece on the viral video of your Halloween costume, it was quite a stunt. We’d love to know how you did it and feature you in a local story special.”
I bit my lip. This is what we wanted to happen. Get on TV. Get seen. Get legitimacy. We planned to check in later, but everyone had basically been on board this morning. I still wasn’t sure what was happening to me, but I trusted David, and something told me I’d be no safer giving up control to Todd Brieker.
“I’ll do it,” I said. I smiled, putting the phone away after I made the appointment. I could announce the app during the interview. We’d just have to get it uploaded to the marketplace in time. I texted David about the interview, then unlocked the door with one hand as I pulled up Todd’s original message.
Thanks for the offer, I typed. But we’ve decided to go in another direction.
I felt a thrill down my spine, and wondered how many other people would have turned down an opportunity like this. I set my bag down on the counter and pulled a tray of leftover lasagna from the fridge. I’d just put a piece in the microwave when I heard a scream.
I ran upstairs and threw open Megan’s door. For a second, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. I thought Megan was playing a prank, or she’d squirted ketchup on her face. Bu
t it was so much worse. Her eyeballs had melted, leaving craters so deep I could see the eye sockets of her skull. Blood ran down her cheeks, like a fountain.
19
I rode to the hospital in the ambulance, holding Megan’s hand. The EMT’s had wrapped a white bandage around her head like a blindfold, then sedated her. I kept putting my cheek against her lips to make sure she was breathing, until they pointed out the monitor showing her pulse. Streaks of sticky red blood stained her pale cheeks. I called Dad and told him to meet us at the hospital.
At the emergency room I told them about Megan’s therabot treatment, and her eye cancer. I tried to fill in the forms while they rushed Megan upstairs, and gave them Dr. Jenkins’s number.
Dad arrived first. We sat awkwardly in the waiting room. At first I tried to read a book, then watch a movie with my earbuds. But the dread was too great. It darkened the room and scratched at me with long black fingers, poking holes in my chest. I hadn’t realized how much better I was getting, since Mom died; how bad it had been. But now I felt it, shutting me down again. If I lost Megan too, there’d be nothing but emptiness.
Finally, Dr. Jenkins came out and waved us into a waiting room.
“How is she?” my Dad asked quickly. “Can we see her?”
“She’s stable,” he said, raising his palms, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I wondered if it was supposed to be reassuring. He raised the blinds of a large window and we could see Megan in the next room, hooked into an IV. The thin hospital gown and adult-sized bed made her look fragile and small. Her eyes had been rewrapped with sterile bandages, but she still had smudges of blood on her cheeks.
“Luckily the therabots seemed to already be working on repairing the damage. They kept her systems functioning as we operated and have already started some kind of accelerated healing – honestly I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But what happened?” Dad asked. “You said the therabots were working, that the cancer was nearly gone. What went wrong?”
“That’s the strange thing,” Dr. Jenkins said. “The therabots I put in her system should have been flushed out a week ago, she shouldn’t even have any. And what they’ve done exactly, on a cellular level, it certainly wasn’t anything they’ve been programmed to do. Unfortunately, the damage to her optic nerves is extensive. I’m afraid to say she may never regain her vision fully.”
“You’re telling me rogue therabots blinded my daughter,” my Dad struggled to choke out the words, “and you don’t know why?” He said them quietly, but there was a rage in his voice I’d never heard before.
“There will be a full investigation,” Dr. Jenkins said. “I’m sure if the therabots are responsible you’ll be offered a generous settlement.”
“I don’t want your money!” Dad shouted, shoving Dr. Jenkins so hard he stumbled over one of the leather chairs, disturbing a stack of magazines and a potted cactus.
“It was me,” I said quietly, putting my hand against the window separating us from Megan’s room. It slipped out, but I didn’t regret it. Dad was scaring me. I’d never seen him lose it like that, and I couldn’t keep this a secret. Not when Megs was on the table, with an IV in her arm, in a hospital gown. I couldn’t lose her, too.
My Dad looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Like I was a stranger. Dr. Jenkins’s eyebrows lifted, but he gave me a condescending smile, like he didn’t believe I’d be capable of something like that.
“I rewrote the base program to keep the therabots in her body longer, and added a program to edit the RB1 gene that causes eye cancer.”
“But that’s... impossible,” Dr. Jenkins said, his smile fading.
“For you, maybe,” I said.
“You did this,” Dad repeated slowly.
“I was trying to save her,” I said, my eyes tearing up.
“She was saved. She was in remission, healed. You could have killed her.”
“I was trying to help,” I said.
“Well you failed,” dad said. “You’re always meddling, trying to fix things. This time you went too far, and ruined your sister.”
“Somebody had to do something,” I said. It was a mean thing to say. I knew my dad felt terrible about not being able to afford treatment. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.
The look of pain on my father’s face took my breath away.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “We were out of cash. What if the cancer had come back? What if there were complications? I did what I thought was right.”
“Get out,” Dad said. He was turning red and shaking with anger. I wanted him to scream at me, or something, but it was like he couldn’t bear to look at me for another second. Like I disgusted him.
“Stop fighting,” Megan said meekly, sitting up on her table, with two big patches of gauze and tape over both eyes. We could barely hear her through the glass.
“It’s not Bree’s fault. It was my idea. I asked her to do it.”
I yanked on the door handle and rushed in the room, wrapping my arms around her.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, sobbing now onto her shoulder.
She patted my head.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said.
“You never do,” Dad turned his back on me and stood by Megan’s bedside.
Dr. Jenkins looked like he was thinking about calling security. He was probably putting the puzzle together, his missing keys, the stolen case of therabots. Suddenly the room felt too crowded and my skin was itching.
I stormed down the hall, not sure where I was going. I just had to get away from my father’s disappointing gaze. I already knew it was my fault. I already felt terrible for what happened to Megan, but having him know it also, it was too much. The hospital felt like it was out of air, I felt hot and muggy, like I couldn’t breathe.
I went outside and took off my sweater, fanning myself and gulping down deep breaths of air. Once I’d calmed down, I realized I didn’t have a ride home. I wasn’t sure how long Dad was going to stay. I couldn’t be in the same room with him, but I didn’t want to be alone in the house either.
I found a half-smoked cigarette in the pavement of the parking lot and sat against the wall around the side of the building. I didn’t smoke but this seemed like a good time to start. Luckily I always carried a lighter. I pulled the smoke deep into my lungs before coughing it back up, choking on the toxins and chemicals and feeling the burn in my chest.
I pulled up Facebook to kill time, and saw over a hundred red notification messages. Someone had posted yesterday’s fight with Melissa; or at least the part where she’d sucker punched me.
I scrolled through the comments.
Bitch. Worthless sack of shit.
She totally deserved it. Whore.
I hope she sees this and kills herself.
I hope she’s dead.
There were hundreds more. I read them all, wondering about the level of rage I’d unleashed. I’d always been fairly invisible. The most interesting thing about me at school had been my dead mother, which generated sympathy or avoidance.
My jaw and eye were bruised from Melissa’s fist, and I had a bump on my skull from where Melissa pushed me into the concrete, but everyone seemed to feel that she was justified, since I’d kissed her boyfriend. Me, meanwhile, I was a freak.
And they weren’t wrong to be afraid. Had I really hypnotized Melissa? I couldn’t imagine how that felt; to have no control. Forced to obey some rando at school. It must have been terrifying. I remember the way my father had looked at me inside the hospital; like I was a monster. Like I was dangerous.
Maybe I was like a broken toy, or a computer infected with malware that I couldn’t help but spread to every device I came in content with. I couldn’t go back in the hospital, so I started walking home, even though it would take at least an hour. I was halfway there before I heard a car pull up next to me. David opened the door and the light popped on.
“Need a lift?”
“
How did you even find me?” I asked.
“I’ve been texting. When you didn’t respond I thought something was wrong. I stopped by your house, your neighbor told me about the ambulance. Saw your dad at the hospital and heard what happened to Megan.”
I nodded and stepped inside. My legs were already tired from walking. We drove home in silence. David parked the car outside my house but I didn’t get out. I didn’t even know I was crying until David lifted a tear off my cheek with his fingertip. I thought he was going to put his arms around me, but instead he reached into his pocket for a tiny sample kit, and used an eyedropper to scoop up the liquid and put it into a vial.
“Is that all you care about?” I said, wiping my eyes. “Your experiments? Worried you’ll get in trouble?”
“Of course not,” David said. “But we were running the same program on you, and you’re fine.”
“Define fine,” I glared.
“I mean, your vision was enhanced, not... whatever that was. Why would the results be different for Megan?”
“I don’t know, Sherlock. You wrote the code. Maybe you miscalculated.”
David looked like he was about to argue, but bit his tongue.
“I’m sorry about your sister. But we need to understand what happened. If this gets out, it’ll change things.”
“Are you kidding? Of course it does – this changes everything. You think I give a fuck about our high school science project right now? It was a huge mistake. We have to cover it up, bury it. It’s too dangerous.”
“It might be too late for that now,” David said. “The tech is out there. People are going to start putting things together. We still have a chance to control the narrative.”
“I said no, and Megan isn’t a narrative. Megan’s more important than everything. She’s all that matters.”
“What about the interview?”
“I’ll cancel it,” I said. “We can’t tell anyone about this. Not now.”
David sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you at school tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything. If there’s anything I can do.”