They walked crookedly down the hallway when, out of nowhere, Rhea stopped, bursting into a fit of laughter. She positioned her body against one of the grimy walls, arms outstretched in both directions. “This is so fun. Isn’t this fun?” she slurred, pressing her cheek against the wall.
Her roommate looked so ridiculous that Emery couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you okay?”
Rhea released herself from the wall, almost losing her footing. “I’ve always been a lightweight. You think that I’d be used to it by now.”
Emery walked alongside Rhea as she stumbled down the hallway, intervening a few times to keep her from face-planting into the tile. When they made it to the restroom, Emery pushed the door open, blinded by a brightly lit room. She wrinkled her nose as the stench of urine and beer filled her nostrils. Gross. Plastic, red cups circled the perimeter of the sinks and wadded up paper towels littered the floor.
Rhea didn’t seem to notice her surroundings as she flung her clutch at Emery and bolted toward an open stall. “I can’t hold it!” she declared as she slammed the door shut behind her.
Emery chuckled as she walked over to the sink. She fixed her hair in the mirror, stopping as Rhea’s clutch began to buzz. She opened it, digging through the wadded up dollar bills and tubes of lipstick. A missed call flashed on the screen.
Mason.
Emery considered stepping out of the restroom to call him back when she heard the toilet flush. The handle jiggled, and it was clear that Rhea was struggling to unlock the stall door. Emery quickly tucked the phone back into Rhea’s clutch and set it on the counter, pretending she hadn’t just gone through her roommate’s things.
“I don’t know about you, but I need another drink,” Rhea slurred. She ambled toward the exit, moving at a much faster pace than expected.
“Are you sure you need another drink?” Emery called out as she grabbed both of their bags and chased her roommate into the hallway.
“Of course I do.” Rhea grabbed Emery’s hand as she led the way down the hall. They squeezed their way back into the overly crowded room and ducked underneath an overhang, then made their way to the center of the chaos. Emery gazed at all the people dancing and flirting with one another. She spotted Jason, who was mixing more drinks, from across the room.
Here we go again, Emery thought as Rhea dragged her through the crowd.
“Jason!” Rhea called out over the deafening bass. They slipped past multiple moving bodies over to where Jason was happily playing bartender.
He grinned as they approached. “There you are. I was wondering if you’d left us.”
“We’d be crazy to leave this early,” Rhea flirted.
He turned toward the windowsill and grabbed another bottle of vodka and cranberry juice. “Well, now that you’re back, I’m sure you’re just dying to have another drink.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Emery interjected.
Rhea waved her hand in the air. “Sure it is. Pour ‘em!”
Jason poured two drinks, handing one to Rhea. Emery watched as they drank, feeling like a babysitter who was about to be fired for not doing her job. Emery panicked as he poured another one, trying to think of any excuse to get Rhea away from the alcohol.
The mood in the room shifted and a higher energy took hold as a dubstep song boomed from the speakers. The room suddenly broke out into a crazy dance orgy. Seeing her opportunity, Emery grabbed Rhea’s hand and dragged her out into the middle of the room. She wasn’t really the dancing type, but it didn’t matter. She needed to get Rhea to slow down before she hurt herself.
They danced for what felt like hours, letting the music move them in whatever way it desired. The room maintained its exuberant energy level as more and more people filed in. It was as if they could go all night—never stopping and never sleeping. Except they couldn’t.
Out of nowhere, a bout of nausea hit Emery. She stopped dancing and closed her eyes as the room started to spin around her, feeling dizzy and disoriented. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, confused by the sudden sensation. She’d only had one drink. One drink wasn’t enough to affect her. Was it?
Doing her best not to panic, she eyed the nearest seating area and ambled over to it, kicking the trash that littered the floor along the way. When she reached the couch, she sat down and fell onto her back immediately. Her neck began to tingle, the microchip buzzing with serious intensity. What’s happening to me?
It crossed her mind to sit up and search for Rhea, but her body acted as if it were made of stone. Emery opened her eyes slowly, squinting at the ceiling. Another bout of nausea hit her as her eyes began to blur. A faraway voice echoed in her head. It belonged to a male, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Tiny black and white dots filled her vision, taunting her with their unrecognizable patterns. Emery tried as hard as she could to stay conscious as her fingers gripped the undersides of the couch. Theo hadn’t mentioned anything like this. Is this a side effect of the chip? Is it malfunctioning?
She needed something—anything—to keep her conscious. Just as she was about to black out, Rhea’s voice sounded from a distance.
“Emery!” she shouted, rushing over to the couch where her motionless roommate lay. Rhea grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up frantically, using her fingers to pry open her roommate’s sealed eyelids.
Feeling her body being jerked upwards, Emery regained some consciousness. Her neck felt like it was on fire. She managed to open her eyes and focus on Rhea’s face. “Please. Get me out of here.”
+ + +
With her hands on Emery’s shoulders, Rhea glanced behind her and nodded at Jason, who was still standing across the room. He let out a gasp with just one look at Emery’s face as he knelt down next to Rhea. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” Rhea gulped. “She doesn’t look good.”
“You don’t look so great either.”
Rhea swallowed, trying to keep her own feelings of nausea at bay. She took a deep breath, trying to formulate a coherent sentence. “I’m sorry, but I think . . . I think we need to leave.”
They threw Emery’s limp arms over each of their shoulders and walked her out of the room, pushing through the heavy door that led to the street outside.
“Do you think you can get her home?” Jason asked as he removed Emery’s arm from around his shoulder. “I would walk you guys back, but all of my stuff is inside.”
Rhea took on the rest of her roommate’s weight as she looked at him, dumbfounded. “Your stuff? You mean, your alcohol?”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah.”
Anger coursed through her veins, sobering her up for a brief moment. “Wow, some gentleman you are,” she scoffed. “I can’t believe—”
But before she could finish, Jason had already darted through the door, disappearing from sight.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered.
Rhea attempted to move in conjunction with Emery’s movements, but whenever she tried to move forward a few feet, she ended up dragging her roommate like an unwanted rag doll. Who was she kidding? Emery was a tiny thing, but asking Rhea to carry someone in the
same weight range was downright ridiculous.
They moved a few steps forward, Emery’s feet dragging over a crack in the pavement. Almost tripping, Rhea let out a frustrated sigh and set Emery down on the curb, watching as her head fell back and made contact with a large rock.
“Oh, shoot!” Rhea gently pulled her roommate back into a sitting position, noticing that her eyes were still closed. A ping sounded from inside her clutch. Followed by another. And another.
“Gee whiz, who in the world is trying to get ahold of you?” Rhea said to her unconscious roommate. “We’re busy!” She swiped the clutch from the ground and pulled out Emery’s phone. Five missed calls from Anthony.
Not really a good time, Rhea thought as she silenced the phone.
She knelt down to Emery’s l
evel. “Hello? Is anybody in there?” She shook her roommate’s shoulders, then lightly swatted both of her cheeks.
No movement.
Rhea checked for a pulse. It was slow, but it was there. Relief washed over her. She’s still alive. She gazed at the empty street around her, hoping that someone would magically appear. But there was no one.
They were alone.
11
Theo yawned as he leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto the desk. He’d hardly slept a wink after his last conversation with President Novak. To say the man was intimidating was an understatement.
Just as he was about to doze off, beeping sounded from the monitors stationed in front of him. Sighing, Theo dropped his feet to the floor and rolled his chair over to the main station. He swiped the screen, watching as Emery’s profile appeared in red. Her vitals were low.
She’d been fine just a minute ago.
He rushed over to the cabinet, checking to see how much serum was left. “Naia!” he called out, panic lining his voice. “Please tell me we have more sanaré!”
There was shuffling outside the door as Naia appeared with a tray full of syringes. “These just arrived from the lab today.”
He motioned for her to come closer as he observed the dismal number of syringes on the tray. Thirty in total.
“Is that all we have?”
“We have enough of the components to make one more batch, but that’ll be the last one.” Naia glanced up at the screen. Her eyes widened with fear. “Is that Emery? Is she—?”
“Emery will be fine,” he assured. “Please keep this to yourself. We don’t need to alarm the President.”
She nodded, lowering her eyes from the screen.
“What is the status of the other participants?” he asked. “Any improvement?”
Naia shook her head. “All participants over thirty-five years of age show signs of decreased activity. They’re not as quick or as agile as our younger participants.”
“Do we know the cause?”
“While we can’t be certain, it’s likely that the lethargum has negative long-lasting effects. Being in a comatose state for an extended period of time may be causing their bodies to deteriorate at an accelerated rate.”
Theo scratched his chin. “Well, it looks like you and I only have a couple more years before we deteriorate as well. Best our work be finished as soon as possible. We’ll focus on our younger participants then. I’m guessing our teenage participants are the most promising?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well then. Please make sure we expedite production in the lab to make the last batch of sanaré. It is our livelihood, after all.” He took one of the syringes from the tray and, with the flick of his wrist, dismissed Naia. He keyed in Emery’s microchip I.D. to access her file, noticing something odd. A piece of her chip had been deactivated, almost like someone had tampered with it. Theo pulled up the history of her chip, searching the records for any recent activity, but there wasn’t any. Her embedment procedure was the only activity listed. Theo grazed his chin with his fingers, trying to recall Emery’s embedment. The chip had tested positive with zero defects.
Something wasn’t right.
He shifted gears and emptied the syringe of orange liquid into the fixed, oval capsule on the main station. The sequence initiated. The serum fused with the holochip, then merged with Emery’s actual embedded microchip. Emery’s vitals steadied, but the monitor still blinked red. “Come on, come on,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
She had to pull through. She just had to.
President Novak would murder him if they lost Emery within the first week of her participation in The Alpha Drive. He’d also be displeased to learn that someone or something had tampered with her microchip. It was probably best if Theo kept that last part to himself. He wished that there was more he could do to help Emery, but he knew from experience that the sanaré would do its job. It’d just take time.
12
Hi, you’ve reached Rhea’s voicemail. I can’t come to the phone right now—
Mason looked down at his phone and sighed before clicking it off. He and his friends had been waiting for over two hours. What’s taking them so long?
He strolled back inside the café and sat down on a slightly deflated bean bag. His friends eyed him questionably, and Mason had a feeling the interrogation was about to begin. He leaned forward, swiftly running his hand through his hair.
“Talk to those girls?” one of his friends asked.
Mason could sense the frustration growing amongst the group. “Not yet, but I’m sure they’ll call me back. Hey, since we’ve been here for a while, why don’t we head over to Alpha Drive? I heard there are a couple of things going on at the Sychem and Club Med buildings.”
“Without the girls?” one of the guys teased, slapping Mason playfully on the back.
“Yes, without the girls,” he retorted, forcing a grin. Mason threw his plastic, coffee cup into the recycling bin and walked toward the front door, his friends following suit.
“Appreciate it, man,” Mason said, tossing some bills onto the counter. The clerk nodded with gratitude as he swiped up the change and placed it in the tip jar.
A hot gust of Arizona wind greeted Mason as he stepped outside. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and dialed Warren’s number. The call was answered on the second ring. If only I could get that type of response from Rhea.
“Hey man, it’s Mason. How is it over there?” He walked a few steps away from his friends who had started a loud discussion over some incident he’d missed earlier that day. Something about a dog, a skateboard, and a blonde girl—he wasn’t too sure where they were going with that one.
Mason focused his attention back on the call. “I’ve just got a small group with me.” He turned to look at his friends, hoping he wouldn’t have to give them bad news. “Awesome. Thanks, man. We’ll see you in a few.”
Mason gathered his friends and they crossed the street, passing some billboards for new housing communities that were being built a couple of blocks away. There really wasn’t much to do outside of Darden Prep—a coffee shop inside of a bookstore was the only other establishment for miles. They passed a few abandoned structures as they crossed over to where the club buildings stood. Mason stopped at the front of the Sychem building, recalling some of the history he’d read on the Darden Prep website.
Sychem was originally a group of fifteen of the most brilliant scientists at Darden, both students and alumni. They were responsible for some of the greatest innovations in science to date, until one year, when one of the scientists took a chemistry project too far. The government ordered Darden Prep to shut down the organization, classifying every detail as confidential. And that was the end of that.
The Sychem structure was built entirely of red brick and stood two stories high. A large cement fence surrounded the property, probably constructed after it’d been shut down in order to keep trespassers out. Unfortunately for Darden, its students were smarter than that.
Mason knocked on the door, feeling surprised as it opened almost immediately.
“Yeah?” a tall, burly guy grunted.
“Hey, I’m Mason. I’m friends with Warren—he invited us over,” he said, extending his hand.
The guy took Mason’s hand and shook it firmly as he scanned over the group. “Hang on.” The guy closed the door halfway and called Warren’s name.
A few minutes passed until Warren appeared in the doorway. “Mason, my man!” he greeted, slapping his hand and pulling him in for a hug. “Come on in.”
It truly was a sight to be seen. To the right of the doorway stood a long, rectangular hall consisting of bedrooms, a restroom, and community showers. The floors were scuffed and dirty, the walls painted with different class dates and members’ initials from each year. Adjacent to the hall was a set of stairs leading to the second floor of rooms, as well as the balcony. Half of the rooms on the second story were in a long co
rridor similar to the first floor—the remaining rooms were outdoors, situated along the balcony. It was then that Mason realized the Sychem building was actually an old residence hall. The scientists had actually lived there. It hadn’t been just their laboratory, but also their living quarters.
On the other side of the stairwell stood the entrance to a massive, indoor courtyard. Half covered in cement, the other half golf-course grass, it extended for the length of a football field. To his amazement, the courtyard was completely hidden by the walls of the building, and those walls were covered in weird, foamy material. It’s completely soundproof. What a genius idea.
Group after group of Darden students filled the dozens of tables, chairs, and couches in the area. Mason noticed a large chalkboard hanging limply from a rusty nail on the far wall. Game tables were lined up underneath it. Judging from the stains on the cement and the cracked ping pong balls scattering the perimeter, it was apparent that Darden students had been coming here for a while. It was hard to believe that Darden administration hadn’t discovered their secret yet.
Mason and his friends continued to follow Warren into the courtyard as he led them to an open table. “I’ll go grab some cups so we can get started,” Warren offered, digging around in his pocket. He pulled out two ping pong balls and tossed them over to Mason. A few minutes later, Warren reappeared through a sliding glass door from the main room. In one hand, he held a bag of red, plastic cups, and in the other, a case of beer. He swung the case onto the table, making a loud thud as it landed. “You and me—we’re a team.”
How’d he get that in here?
Mason nodded as they began arranging the cups into a triangular shape at their end of the table. They played for a few hours and, after Mason and Warren won all three games, decided to call it quits. Mason guzzled the last of his beer, smashed the can, and threw it into the nearest garbage can. He eased into an uncomfortable patio chair, allowing his head to tilt back against the cold, hard plastic. The sounds of people laughing and yelling filled his ears. Dots clouded his vision.
The Alpha Drive Page 7