Grounded

by G. P. Ching

  Every muscle in my body tightens, and pain throbs at my temple. I have been cooperative long enough. I’ve been violated and treated rudely. “I told you,” I rage, raising my voice for the first time, “I am not stealing electricity. I was electrocuted. There is nothing inside of me but me!”

  Dr. Konrad looks strangely pleased with my answer. “Lie down on the table.”

  I comply, hoping this machine will prove my innocence once and for all. With three thick straps, he secures me to the table. The plastic buckles lock over my arms and chest. I turn my head to the side and watch him retreat to the glass room. He sits in the chair and turns his attention toward the blinking equipment.

  With an initial jerk, the narrow table I’m lying on slides slowly under the arc of the machine, cutting off my view of the doctor. I’m in a long cream-colored tube. The hum grows into a buzz, a hundred swarming bees but amplified. I try to relax and stare at the dome above me. Click, click, clickity, click.

  Pain. It starts behind one eye, then spreads through my body to my fingers and toes. It’s sharp and hot. Fire blazes inside my veins, a thousand pins that cut through my skin. Prickle and heat, a sunburn from the inside out.

  “Stop, stop! It hurts!” I cry. My voice echoes inside the tube.

  Clicking circles my head. “What have you done? Wired it to your bones?” Konrad’s taunting voice is harsh and accusing, like I’m getting what I deserve.

  Agony, so intense I think I will black out. The pain has gone deeper. I tug against the straps and squirm on the narrow table. Surely my bones are being ripped from my flesh.

  “Stop! Please stop!” I scream.

  “Highly unusual,” trails Konrad’s voice, but the machine keeps clicking.

  I can’t take anymore. I curl and twist, like a dying animal, held in place by my restraints. Silently, I pray to God to take me home, to end my suffering in this torturous machine. I am ready to die. Anything to end this.

  Snap. My body jolts on the table, then goes rigid, straightening from its writhing position. My muscles stiffen and seize. My spine is a rubber band that God has stretched to the limit and then let go. All sense of self is lost to the pain. Am I still on the table? Or am I floating in acid? The only things keeping me from hitting the ceiling of the machine are the straps that bind me.

  I press my eyes closed. God help me, please! I need a miracle. My muscles clench. I turn my head and heave, but there’s nothing in my stomach. When I open my eyes again, I moan. Everything around me glows pale blue. Everything. My skin. The air. The machine. I lift my head and try to look down my body out the hole in the tube, but I can’t see past my toes. My skin itches as if it’s stretched too tightly across my muscles, as if a stronger sensation is waiting to take hold.

  And then, just like with Caleb’s lamp, lightning bolts of electricity shoot from the machine into me. But unlike in the house, I don’t pass out this time. The energy pours in through my heart, my hands, my legs. It burrows along my spine and funnels out my mouth in the form of an exhilarated howl. The straps binding me scorch, then snap. Blue-white streams blaze between the machine and my body, getting brighter, stronger, until the entire thing explodes in a shower of circular plastic, exposed wires, and sprays of sparks. Metal twists and breaks apart. Sections bounce off the bluish-white glow and ping-pong against each other. Parts of the machine fold outward, away from me.

  I float up through the destruction until my feet land on a pile of burnt rubble. Hot wind swirls around me, blowing back my hair and making a sound…a sound I’ve heard only once before. I am in the center of a chugging tornado. The wind howls and the sizzle of power threatens to blow out the walls. This is what I prayed for. This is my miracle.

  Dr. Konrad gawks at me through the observation window. He moves for the door to the small glass room. In a panic, I pick up a chunk of machine and hurl it toward him. I only mean to block his exit, but the projectile hits the door with surprising force, throwing him back into the room. Through the glass I see his head slap the desk and his body tumble to the floor. And then I run.

  I don’t waste time questioning God’s way of saving me. The door is unlocked and I scramble into the hallway. The cold reminds me I am effectively naked. Singed shreds of my tunic hang in ribbons from my body. I can’t escape in this. I return to the room where I’d been held and snatch my pile of clothes off the chair. Heart pounding in my ears, I clamber for the elevators.

  But to get there, I have to pass the room next door, where I’d heard the moan. My conscience grips me by the throat and stops me in my tracks. I check over my shoulder. How much time do I have? I shake so hard my teeth clack together, but the sound of the moan won’t leave my head. It’s like heaven is tugging at my heart. My brain says to run, but my soul demands I save what’s in the room. I can’t accept the gift of God’s miracle without being His hands, His miracle for someone else.

  I push on the door. Locked. The moan comes again. Weak. Pitiful. There isn’t even a knob, just a Biolock. I rest my hand on it and make a deal with God. If he wants me to save whoever is inside, then I need a way to enter. Now. The force I’d felt in the MRI machine bleeds down my arm and makes the panel glow. I push with everything I have, and the mechanism clicks.

  Plowing my shoulder into the door, I burst into the room then back-pedal when I see what’s inside. There is a boy…well, if you can call a body as broken as the one in front of me a boy. One breath away from a corpse, his skin is covered in sores and his lips are ashen blue. Blood stains his thin white tunic and hospital pants folded up above the knee. There are wires hooked to his flesh. Wires run from his arms, his legs, his hands. The entire room is filled with beeping, blinking machines.

  I don’t hesitate. I fist the wires and rip them from his skin. Without thinking about the consequences, I lift his arm and roll him across my shoulders. It isn’t unlike carrying a bag of grain, and I feel strong. Stronger than usual.

  “Who…are…you?” the boy groans.

  I don’t answer. As fast as I can, I carry him on my back to the elevators and slap the button.

  “Stop!” Dr. Konrad calls from the end of the hall. Blood runs from a gash in his head and he stumbles toward us with hands extended.

  The elevator doors open and I lunge inside, tipping my shoulders to dump the boy in the corner while I hug my clothes to my chest. I hit the button labeled Atrium. Dr. Konrad’s shoes slap the tile and his face appears between the closing doors.

  “Stay away from me!” I snap.

  He reaches for me, but it’s too late. The doors close him out. The elevator descends.

  “Who…are you?” the boy mumbles.

  “Thank goodness you’re alive,” I say, as I dress hastily. “What were they doing to you?”

  “Hit the red button,” he rasps.

  I poke the button marked emergency, as I slip on my shoes. The elevator jerks to a halt. A loud siren sounds overhead. I cover my ears. The lights above me turn red and blink. “What’s going on?”

  “You need to help me.”

  “What else can I do? I am helping you. I got you out of there, didn’t I?” I have to scream over the alarm. His image takes on a jerky quality in the flashing red light.

  “The panel,” the boy gasps, pointing at the buttons. “Rip it off.”

  “What? The button panel?”

  “Yes! Now!”

  I don’t like vandalizing the elevator. It goes against everything I’ve been taught my whole life. But this place is not like home. I’ve tried to be compliant. I’ve tried to follow the rules. But these people don’t play by the same rules as Hemlock Hollow. I follow the boy’s directions because I don’t understand any of this and he seems to. I dig my fingers into the place where the metal plate is screwed into the wall and pull. It doesn’t budge.

  “Unless you have a screwdriver, you’re going to have to use the juice. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw how you got into my cell.”

  I focus on the panel
, trying to call the miracle again. It’s harder this time, like the blue glow is deep within me. But it does come. The panel sizzles beneath my touch, the screws melt, and I fall backward onto the floor of the elevator with the panel in my hands. My newfound strength is gone, replaced by an exhaustion just as extreme. I am so tired my skin hurts.

  “You scampers just get better and better. What is it, wired into your hands?”

  I part my lips to answer, but I’m too tired to speak.

  “Don’t worry.” He grins slightly. “I’ve got no room to judge.”

  “I’m not...” I start to say I’m not a scamper, but my voice peters out in my throat. This is more than exhaustion. I can barely keep my eyes open. He isn’t listening anyway. He drags himself to the exposed wires of the panel, grips one, and pries it apart. He laughs in a way that makes me shiver, the sound wicked and dark. From the exposed wire, the blue glow flows into his hand. What I thought was my personal miracle suddenly seems common. The siren wavers and then dies.

  “Oh yeah!” he howls.

  The blinking lights extinguish, and then the only break in the blackness around me is the glow from the boy. He’s still bloody and covered in sores but his pale skin radiates blue. His ashen lips transform to a full, rosy pink and the dark circles under his eyes fade. I have a moment to register that he’s around my age. What’s he doing here?

  He leaps to the balls of his feet and casts a straight white smile in my direction. “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Lydia,” I mumble.

  “Lydia, I have a million questions for you, but there’s no time for chitchat. Give me your hand. We need to get out of here.”

  I barely move, inching one heavy hand in his direction. Impatient, he stretches forward and grabs my fingers to pull me to my feet. But something inside me shifts, and a stringy tickle courses through my palm. My body drinks from the connection, refreshing itself in a way I never knew possible. The blue glow slips from his hand into mine, creeping up my wrist to my shoulder.

  The boy’s eyes widen. “Oh! Crap. What kind of scamper are you?” He yanks his hand away, as if I’ve stolen something from him.

  My strength returns, and I scramble to my feet, my palm tingling. For a moment, the boy and I stare at each other. His eyes narrow and he shakes his head. I wipe my hand on my jeans but the tingle remains.

  Then he touches two wires together and the elevator begins moving again.

  6

  When we reach the ground floor, the boy pushes me aside, wires still pinched between his fingers. In a flash, he squeezes through the opening doors into the atrium, releasing his electric hold. The elevator freezes and the lights go out.

  As we exit the elevator, the atrium is complete chaos. People flood toward the exit, but no one is leaving. Instead, they bark into their phones and snap at each other. I glimpse a security guard with his thin plastic phone to his ear. He looks at us, then the elevator, confused, presumably because the elevator shouldn’t run with the power out.

  “I have them,” he says. Then he pulls a gun.

  There’s a scream from a woman in a yellow suit next to the guard, but the boy is unfazed. With a burst of speed, he charges and kicks the gun toward the ceiling. The weapon discharges, eliciting more screams from the already panicked crowd, then drops and skims across the floor. A second guard rushes from the crowd and thwacks the boy with a club. The boy plows the heel of his hand into the soft spot under the guard’s chin and blocks a punch from the first guard with his forearm. Bam! Thwack! He spins and plows his foot into the second guard’s chest while punching the other under the ribs. His strikes are powerful and true. This boy is a skilled fighter; even I can see that. The officers crumple. Blood sprays from the mouth of one of the men, stark red against the bright white floor. I have to cover my mouth to keep from getting sick. The men don’t get up.

  Ears ringing from the gunshot, I’m disoriented as the boy grabs my wrist and drags me through total chaos. The glow of his skin lights the darkened atrium, reflecting off the glass of the front windows. We move toward a crowd of people gathered near the glass entrance.

  “They can’t get out,” the boy says to me. “CGEF security. When something goes wrong, none of the Biolocks work. They lock everyone inside on purpose. Down with the ship.”

  “What? Why?” What he’s saying doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would CGEF lock their people in? But I can see right away that what he says is true. A woman beats against the glass, arms spread in panic like a bee caught in a storm door. When the others in the crowd notice the boy’s blue body shifting ghostlike into their midst, they scramble away in terror. Normally, my upbringing would move me to comfort them, but under the circumstances, I’m more concerned about our freedom.

  “No time for explanations. There will be reinforcements.” He sweeps me slightly behind him. With a deep breath, he throws his hand toward a break in the crowd. A lightning bolt flies from his palm, thick and white. The air crackles around us. It plows into the glass and the entrance shatters.

  Instinctively, I turn to the side and cover my head. A waterfall of falling glass washes toward my feet. It’s loud and it keeps coming. New glass breaks and falls, each section shattering and sending a new swell of razor-sharp segments. I expect to be sliced to pieces by the influx, but when the glass comes to rest, I’m unharmed. I look at the floor in confusion and see that the shards have missed us by a fraction of an inch.

  “How did—” I start.

  “Come on!” he commands. His hand grips above my elbow and moves me forward.

  He leads me through the broken window and into the panicked crowd. People race out of the building, darting in all directions in a stampede that closes in around us. We shoulder through the masses toward the streets. A traffic jam has formed in front of the building, drivers gawking through downed windows.

  Suddenly, I remember the containment cuff Officer Reynolds placed on me. “Wait,” I say, holding up my wrist to the boy, but all that’s left is residue.

  He tugs me forward, annoyed.

  Flashing lights. Sirens. The boy yanks me into the street, weaving between vehicles.

  “Stop right there!” a man in a green uniform yells.

  Officers pour from the building, pointing metal boxes in our direction. Unlike the security guard’s gun, the boxes hardly look menacing. But the boy tenses and grips me tighter like he’s afraid for the first time.

  “Sorry, pigs, I don’t care for your hospitality.”

  The officer closest to me pulls the trigger and I see two probes shoot from the weapon. The boy sweeps me out of the way at the last second and then squeezes my waist. A surge of power explodes from his hand, and the guards fall to the pavement, twitching. He’s taken it—somehow he’s pulled the energy from me. Unable to catch my breath, the world tilts and I sag against him.

  He half-drags, half-carries me to the railing on the far side of the street. Sweeping me into his arms, he looks me in the eye and flashes me a cynical grin. “How are you at falling?” he asks.

  I look over my shoulder and see we are on the edge of an overpass. Does he intend to drop me? “No—”

  He jumps and we drop toward concrete. I scream and thrash, but he holds me tight. There’s a sharp jerk. He’s landed on his feet!

  Overwhelmed, I tilt my head up. “How?” is all I can manage. His hazel eyes widen in fear and I follow his gaze over my shoulder to see a truck barreling toward us. The boy thrusts me to the side, straight into the concrete of the underpass. My cheek slaps the wall, and his body presses into mine, holding me there. The truck passes, close enough to blow my hair forward in its wake. After it’s gone, he backs off a few inches, and I take my first real breath.

  I sweep the hair out of my eyes and get a good look around. We are under the bridge. A ramp circles around from above and then passes under CGEF. It’s only a matter of time before more guards come for us.

  “What now?” I shout to the boy, but he’s collapsed at my f
eet. The sores on his arms are bleeding. Traffic races by at dizzying speed. I don’t know what to do. I scramble to lift him as green uniforms point at me from the railing above. They are coming for us. Lord, help me, I pray again.

  As if on cue, a white van with a painting of a desert sunrise rolls to a stop just under the bridge, out of sight of the guards. A gray-haired woman hangs out the window, the buckle of what looks like an apron glinting in the moonlight.

  “Get in,” she commands. The hatch of the van opens on its own.

  I turn my face toward the ramp.

  “It won’t take them long, honey,” the woman says.

  For the second time that day, I roll the boy onto my back, and with everything I have left, I move him onto the floor of the van. I’m not strong enough to get him completely in, and his legs dangle off the end. Groaning, I crawl inside and hook my hands in his armpits, digging my heels into the carpeted interior and falling backward to get him completely inside before the doors close. The van lurches into motion even before the hatch is closed.

  Panting, I turn toward my rescuer. A steel grate separates us. She doesn’t look at me, engrossed as she is in the blinking lights of her dashboard. Soon, the blurring cars speed by in the disorienting way that makes my stomach turn. What did Officer Reynolds call this? Snapping to the grid.

  “I’m Helen,” she says, turning her seat to face me.

  “Nice to meet you, Helen. I’m Lydia. Thank you for helping us.”

  “Who’s your friend there?”

  The bruised and bloody boy next to me is still unconscious. “I don’t know his name.”

  She laughs through her nose, her wrinkled face contracting into a kind of smile that I’m not familiar with, a showing of teeth that makes my chest tighten.

  “You may not know who he is, but I know what he is and what you are. You’re scampers.”