by Unknown
U-Link. Before their surgeries, Roslyn and the rest had been told it would be the next great networking system.
Roslyn touched the IV cannula sprouting from her chest, into which would soon spew the latest chemical stew, and wondered if maybe this time she should have waited for Version 2.0. The one that didn’t shut down all your internal organs one by one until all you had left was your brain.
Dr. Erickson grabbed her foot and she jumped. Not that it hurt — it didn’t, her nerves didn’t carry pain messages the way they used to — he had just surprised her. She cut the connection to Gina and glared at him. “What?”
“Are you having difficulty focusing?” He looked anxious. “Maybe another CT scan—”
“No,” she snapped. “My brain’s not shutting down. I’m ignoring you. I only ever asked for two things, Dr. E. Saying no about the blood, all right, I get that, but no computer? That’s BS and you know it.”
She almost added that the V-Link — the name Gina had coined when the U-Link patients spontaneously reconnected — wasn’t enough anymore. That she missed her old friends, and her mother, and her life. But she clamped her mouth shut before those words slipped out. He didn’t need to know about the V-Link. That was their little secret.
His expression went from anxious to almost angry. “Those are the rules. You know them as well as I do. Now, pay attention, please. We are going to change your regimen—”
“Again?” she whined, hating the weak sound of it. “Why?”
“Remarkable advances were made at the New Hampshire facility—”
“What advances?” Roger and Cassidy were in New Hampshire.
She clawed at the blankets until Erickson helped her sit upright. “Have you been out of bed today?” he asked.
“No. Tell me what happened in New Hampshire.”
“You must exercise.” He pointed to the hated walker, the scorch mark visible on the side. “Your muscles are atrophying—”
“Thinner’s better,” she quipped. When he didn’t laugh, she went serious, too. “I’m not taking the chance. Not after Melissa.”
“You don’t have to go outside. Just up and down the halls.”
“But I have to do it during the day, when the physio staff’s here. You know that, Dr. E.”
She closed her eyes and saw Melissa stepping out through the front door of the hospital like it was happening at this moment and not three months before. The late afternoon sun touching her. Igniting her. Her screaming and screaming as Roslyn fell backwards into the safety of the shadows. And then Roslyn screaming as Melissa finally fell, finally silent, to the sidewalk, and burned to ash. “I’m not doing that again.”
“But you have to walk.”
She shook her head. “Tell me what happened in New Hampshire.”
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.
“Please?” She let her voice wander up to little girl young, because it worked on him sometimes.
“They removed the implants from two of the patients there,” he finally said.
A chill, like a puff of winter, and she pulled the blanket up to her chin before she realized it was fear and not cold. “Successfully?”
“More or less.”
The chill trickled over her like ice water. She shuddered. “What does that mean?”
“The good news is, both survived, this time. And it appears that some of their internal organs are regaining viability.” He smiled. “We are very hopeful.”
“Their hearts?” she asked.
“No. The appendix. But it’s a start.”
“And the bad news?” There was always bad news.
“There was some loss of brain function—”
She touched the scar that ran along her hairline. “How much?”
“Some cognitive ability, and for some reason, scent recognition.” He shook his head, as though that was the real puzzler. Then his eyes slid from hers and settled on the thin blanket covering her belly. “They only lost a few IQ points, though. Nothing to worry about.”
“How many’s a few?”
“Not many.” Erickson’s eyes did not leave her midsection. He was lying. “The results were positive enough to warrant phase two. A slight variation on the chemical mixture. And then extraction.”
“So, who’s your next victim?”
Erickson’s face tightened and his eyes swung up to hers.
“Not me,” she whispered.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“But that’s not fair!” Roslyn looked around the room as though trying to find something in all that sterile white with which to protect herself. She clicked on the V-Link and thought/screamed 911, 911, 911, as if it would do some good.
“We’ll start the next round of chemical therapy tomorrow night,” Erickson said. “It’s for your own good.”
The V-Link came alive. Through the noise of everyone asking what was wrong, she tried to focus on him, on his words.
“I don’t want to die,” she finally whispered. “Please tell me I’m not going to die.”
“We won’t let that happen, Roslyn.” He smiled, and she tried to smile back. “I won’t see you until the day before the extraction, but I want you to be brave. Think of it. You’re about to get your life back.”
He patted her hand and walked out of the room. As the door swished shut, she was left alone with her own thoughts and those of the twenty-eight people left of the Link experiment. She was so afraid; all she could do was cry like a little girl.
She was next. They were going to disconnect her next.
Before she was hooked up to the blood/heart machine to pump the new chemical stew through her system, some of the other Link patients almost convinced her that having the implant taken out could be a good thing. If she went through with this, she could go back to normal. So what if she lost a few IQ points, and the only organ working in her body was the hugely useless appendix? She could go back to her life. Her friends. Maybe even her mother.
The machine clicked and slurped to life beside her and she tried to hang on to that thought. Then the toxic liquid boiled through her veins and she couldn’t think anymore. All she could do was scream.
After the nurses disconnected her and wheeled her back to her bed, she struggled against her tightly tucked blankets until Gina’s voice rippled through her consciousness.
How do you feel?
Weak. She tried to pull her arms out from under the blankets, but couldn’t. A lot weaker, actually.
We were strong before they started all this. Very, very strong.
I know. But we can’t go back to that. It’s against the law.
The laws need to be changed.
Roslyn snorted laughter. Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Maybe run for office — if I could get out of bed!
I’m not kidding. Gina’s thoughts read deadly serious. They shouldn’t be treating us like this. We are real.
Of course we’re real. Roslyn thought about disconnecting. Gina was going to go into one of her conspiracy theory rants, and she didn’t feel up to it. Not after the blood-heart machine. Not after the screaming.
Don’t shut me down! Gina’s thoughts slammed into Roslyn’s head, bringing more than warmth. Heat — almost pain. I found an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. They are calling what happened to us an unintended side effect of the Link implant.
You think?
Just listen. Somehow the implant flipped a switch — a genetic switch in all of us. I don’t know how — hell, I don’t understand half the words they used. But that’s what all the experimentation is about. They want to make the Link work, without turning the users from human to — whatever we are. That’s why there are only twenty-eight of us left.
She wished Gina would shut up. She was too tired. The others aren’t dead or anything. They just disconnected from the V-Link when the implant was removed.
I think we got that wrong. In the article, they talk about brain biopsies after extraction. Br
ain biopsies, Roslyn.
Roslyn shuddered. Gina was lying. She had to be. They’re trying to save us!
I don’t think so.
Roslyn fought against the blankets, listening to her choked gasps and wondering if her lungs, somehow, had restarted. She was, for the first time, afraid it was all a lie.
We need to get strong, Roslyn. That means getting blood. Real blood. Not this plasma shit they’ve been feeding us.
She stopped fighting. Stared up at the ceiling. I won’t kill anyone.
Probably be better if you didn’t, Gina replied, and laughed her smoky, angry laugh. But we need to build our strength. Blood’s the only way.
Are you sure?
Yes. Gina broke the link, and Roslyn was alone.
She wriggled one arm free and pulled the sheets back from her body. Exhaustion overtook her, and she almost gave up, but then mentally kicked herself. Get up now!
She pulled herself upright, then grabbed her right leg and swung it over the edge of the bed. She almost fell to the floor, but gained control. She grabbed the other leg and moved it next to the first, like so much dead wood. Focusing on her legs, she tried to convince them to move. She couldn’t tell if she felt more like cheering or crying when she saw her right foot twitch. And then another twitch. And then, almost without thought, she was standing beside the bed, staring through the gloom at her walker. So far away.
“I can do this,” she whispered, hoping she wasn’t lying to herself. She shuffled forward a step. Her eyesight darkened, but she waited it out. Another step and another, clutching first the bed, and then the chair no one ever used, and then the cupboard that held everything she had left from her other life — the clothes in which she had been caught. She wondered if they were still covered in Terry’s blood and tried not think of that. Two steps. She grabbed the walker and clung to it like an old friend. After a pause, she wheeled herself to the door and opened it.
A chair sat empty beside her door. The guard was no longer needed because she was no longer a threat. She hadn’t been out of that bed for months. She wheeled past it, away from the nurse’s station — she didn’t want to attract their attention.
Her feet tangled and she almost fell. She clutched the walker and glared down until both feet faced forward again. She had four doors to check. Just four. If she didn’t find a way to feed on this floor, she was done.
She pushed against the first door and glanced into the room. Two males. No one was being given blood. The door snicked shut as she shuffled to the next room. A woman, alone. The wonderful metal smell of fresh blood wafted over Roslyn. She checked to make certain no one saw her, and then walked through the door, pushing it closed behind her.
The woman was hooked up to every machine known to man, as far as Roslyn could tell. Her eyes, half open in her badly beaten face, looked more dead than alive.
“Hi,” Roslyn said, ready to back out and find another room if the woman answered.
The woman didn’t react.
Roslyn shuffled up and reached out a shaking hand, touching the IV bag that hung from the stand by the bed. Full of blood.
“I’m just going to borrow a bit,” she said, as she disconnected the plastic tubing from the woman’s arm. When a small drop of blood fell, her mouth flooded with saliva and she rammed the plastic tube between her lips, closed her eyes and sucked, sighing as the blood touched her tongue then flooded her mouth. Her gums felt warm, and then began to ache. She groaned, sucking and swallowing, feeling warmth slide down her throat into her belly, then expand everywhere inside her.
With the warmth came strength. Her arms and legs stopped feeling wooden. She knew if she drank it all she’d be caught. She took one more long pull on the plastic tubing, filling her mouth before she reconnected the tube to the woman.
“Thanks.” She grabbed the walker and tugged it behind her as she headed out the door and back to her room.
Gina. It works, she chortled as she jumped into bed. It works way better than I would have believed.
We all need to do this, and then get out, Gina replied. Find some place to hide. All of us, together.
Roslyn paused. She didn’t know if she wanted to run away. Maybe some of what Erickson told her was the truth. Maybe she could still have her old life back. Maybe, for her, it would work.
I just want to go home, she thought.
Don’t we all. Gina’s thoughts were filled with such remorse, Roslyn wondered if she had kids. She didn’t ask. Nobody talked about the family they left behind.
Every night Roslyn went to the woman in the coma, stealing sips of blood from the plastic tube. Then she walked, to rebuild her strength. At first all she could manage was the hallway, but soon she tackled the stairs. Up to the roof, and then down to the basement. She moved more and more quickly, taking the stairs two at a time, running up and then down them as though she was on flat ground. It felt glorious.
The second night on the stairs, she went on the roof. She stood in the cold dark, drinking in the sight of the stars and the swollen harvest moon and wishing she could just fly away. She said that to Gina, who replied flatly, We can’t do that.
How do you know? She stared longingly out over the parking lot. Just one step. That’s all it would take.
Raymond couldn’t.
Oh. Roslyn backed away from the edge of the roof. Raymond had been the first to disappear, even before the artificial Link had been disconnected. Before they’d all been caught.
He’d jumped off the roof of his apartment building when the police came to pick him up. Splattered his brains all over the sidewalk in front of his condo. And they’d all seen it. Felt it. Roslyn shuddered.
Did you ever figure out why he did that?
He killed his wife. Felt bad about it.
Her thoughts touched on Terry, then skittered away.
You do realize you weren’t the only one, right? Gina said. We all killed someone.
Roslyn stared out at the cold starlight. They’d never talked about it, but it made sense. Funny she’d never connected that particular dot before.
The media dubbed us vampire killers.
But we don’t kill vampires—
It’s not funny, Roslyn. We have to be careful when we get back out in the world. That’s all I’m saying.
Roslyn stared up at the stars, feeling a twinge of anger. That was probably why her mother left. Hadn’t had anything to do with Terry at all. No, dear old Mom wouldn’t have been able to stand the embarrassment of media attention.
Thanks for looking out for me, Gina, she thought, impulsively. You would have made a good mom, know what I mean?
Gina broke the connection without answering, leaving Roslyn alone, staring at the cold stars, impossibly far away.
Gina did not communicate with anyone for three nights. When Roslyn felt her thoughts finally curl into her mind, anger and relief washed over her in equal measure.
Where were you? Everybody thought something happened. They’re all acting crazy. Are you all right?
I’m fine. Gina sounded strong, blood strong, and relief flooded through Roslyn. Did you know Erickson and the rest were coming here? To the university?
Roslyn frowned. No. Why would they do that?
They’re having a frigging symposium. Trying to figure out how to deal with the Link issue. Gina laughed, smoke angry. We’re an issue now.
Roslyn kicked her legs to loosen the blankets and got out of bed. So what are they going to do?
They’ve decided to speed up the experimentation. It’s not just you next. They’ve chosen ten of us. Same ‘therapy’ they used on Roger and Cassidy.
Because it’s working? Hope touched her faintly.
No. I saw Cassidy’s autopsy report.
But Cassidy survived! Roslyn felt sick and wished she could puke. Erickson told me she survived.
He lied. They’re killing everyone. Everyone. We have to escape. Go somewhere safe.
Roslyn heaved once, but there was nothing to vomit and
hadn’t been for months. She padded back and forth between the door and the foil-covered windows, feeling like a caged animal. Where’s safe?
Gina was silent so long, Roslyn was afraid she’d disappeared again. I don’t know yet, she finally thought. But soon. I’ll find someplace soon.
Roslyn reached out and touched the foil over the window, felt warmth, and knew the sun was just on the other side, ready to burn her to a crisp. Just don’t leave me.
I won’t.
Promise? She pulled her hand away from the foil and looked down at it, half expecting to see blisters. There was nothing.
I promise.
The woman in Room Three died, but it was all right, because Roslyn didn’t need her anymore. She moved around the hospital silently, feeling like a ninja or something, taking blood where she found it. She felt stronger with every sip, and chafed against being trapped in the hospital. But Gina said she had to wait until they were all strong enough to leave, so she bided her time, and continued to work out.
Up and down the stairs she ran every night, reveling in the return of her strength. She moved more quickly, taking the steps two at a time, then three, then four. Leaping and landing, light as a jungle cat.
“I think Gina might be wrong,” she whispered. She tried jumping a flight of stairs. Landed. Took the next flight, laughing joyously. “I bet we can fly, if we try hard enough.”
She turned to head back down the stairs, and leapt. Her toe caught on the top step and she fell, crashing down the whole flight and half of the next before she finally stopped, stunned.
She heard a door swing open on the floor above her and knew she had to move or she’d be caught. She opened her eyes, and then slammed them shut as the staircase whirled around her.
Steps, slow at first, then a quick rat-ta-tat down the stairs to her side. “Are you all right?” a man’s voice asked.
“I slipped,” she whispered, opening one eye and then, carefully, the other.
A janitor stood a step up from her, staring stupidly. “Maybe I should get a nurse.”
The last thing in the world she needed. She shook her head, and then slowly began to move body parts to see what damage she had done to herself.