His stomach flip-flopped and he slammed the paper in half, blocking out the name. He put it in the beanie, handing the pen to the person behind him.
Once the crowd all had their names in the hat, Deborah picked it up and stirred it around with her hand. She pulled out name after name until ten were picked and were loading up on the bus. Nobody had belongings. Where was all their stuff? At least it didn’t make Jamie stand out.
Deborah called out, “Jamie. Tempe, Arizona?”
A wave of nausea hit him hard. He walked on unsteady legs toward Deborah, and the closer he got to her, the sicker he felt. She wasn’t looking at him at first, but by the time he stopped and panted beside the bus door, trying to keep the nothing in his stomach from dry heaving, her eyes widened. She dropped her tablet and ran to him, grabbing him by the face. “You still have it? You still have it? What are you thinking?”
“What are you talking abo—” His gut lurched.
She hissed at him, “The implant, you dumbass. You have it?”
“Yeah. I do, yeah.”
“Take a deep breath. Here.” She leaned into the bus and pulled out a canteen. “Drink some water. Deep breaths. Don’t think about anything and calm the hell down. Alright? It’s gonna be okay.”
He guzzled the water and his stomach still wouldn’t settle. “What is happening to me?”
“Oh lord, we have to get this thing out. Been a year since anything like this has happened. You,” she said to a large man nearby, “grab him. Bring him to my room.”
“Only if I get to go to El Paso.”
“Deal, now come on!”
Others in the crowd complained that the man helping her got special treatment, but Jamie was in too much misery to notice. He couldn’t stop visualizing the words no matter how hard he tried not to focus on them. How would he even be able to enter the city?
Deborah and the man helped him to a hotel room. Inside, they lay him on the bed and told him to keep taking deep breaths. The man left, and another arrived.
“Just in time, doc. You have to yank this one quick. We got a schedule,” said Deborah.
Jamie held out a hand. “Wait, what are you doing?”
The man said, “Take it easy. Just going to give you a little shot so you don’t feel the pain. It’s messy, too. You got the other bed ready, Deb?”
“Yes sir.”
“Jamie, I want you to get on the other bed and lie on your side. Real easy. Take it slow.”
He did as he was told. He could tell these people were trying to help him; that they were in on this truth that was hidden from him and possibly everyone he’d ever known.
He felt a sting in the back of his neck. “What was that?” he asked.
“That’s the local anesthetic. It stings a little. But that’s all we have time for. They may be after you already.”
“He hasn’t used any XCs,” Deborah said to the doctor.
“Good. Now, this will feel weird, but it won’t hurt a bit. Here we go; easy does it.”
Jamie couldn’t see a thing, but after a moment of listening to the doctor say “easy does it,” he felt like the man was breaking his neck. He choked and tried to jerk away, but he was paralyzed from the neck down. That’s when true panic set in.
“Oh shit. He’s freakin’ out, Henry,” said Deborah.
“Just easy does it, don’t get worked up or you’ll shut down and…we’re done!”
As he said those last words, Jamie felt immediately strange and disconnected. Everything in the room spun. He puked up the bit of water he’d had, and then turned to look at Henry, the doctor who had just removed his Xchange Credits implant. Then he saw the blood. It was everywhere—his blood. And then he saw someone else’s blood in his mind. A woman’s blood. But whose? Why was he on a bathroom floor covered in Amanda’s blood?
“Oh my god,” he muttered, just before passing out.
Chapter 10
Jamie came to, eyes still closed, feeling the gentle sway of motion. The back of his head was on fire, killing him. He cracked open his eyes and saw the roof of Deborah’s electric bus.
He reached to the back of his head. It was bandaged, and his loose hair lay over the cotton strips. What happened?
His mind was blank for a moment, and then it all came back. The doctor pulling out his implant, the memory…the awful memory of seeing Amanda murdered, butchered. How Jamie killed those men, tore them to pieces.
He pushed his palms into his now closed eyes, trying to stop the images. Why had Ingrid sent him here? What was the purpose of remembering something so appalling? All his hope of finding a living, breathing Amanda was lost.
The rails Deborah followed were smooth. Jamie calmed as the miles passed. He silenced his mind; now is now. Now was what he had to deal with.
They’d cleaned him up pretty well. He was in some old sweat pants and a t-shirt. His hair wasn’t matted with blood. He looked around and saw that he was in the back of the bus, on the floor. Seatbacks faced him, as well as a redhead with freckles and pigtails, looking to be about seven.
“You’re alright now.” She smiled. “I’m lucky. I’ve been watching you till you was okay.” Her southern accent lilted up and down as she spoke.
“Hi.” His voice sounded raspy, like he’d eaten sand.
“I’m Emily. Mama’s waitin’ for me, and Deborah said you and me stuck together ‘cause we’re both going to Phoenix.” She pushed a stray hair out of her face. So thin. Ragged clothing.
“I’m Jamie,” he said. “Why are you lucky? I know it’s not because you’re stuck in the back of a bus with me.” He managed a small grin.
“I never had one put in, that’s why. I’m a ghost. Now you’re a ghost, but they say you’re the kind of ghost with a memory of living.” She pushed her red eyebrows together. “I don’t really know if being a ghost is that great,” she whispered.
“Why are you going to Phoenix? Where are we?”
“I’m meetin’ Mama. She’s been waitin’ for me. Uncle Steven watched me till the bus stopped in Texas a while back. Three hours to Phoenix, but there’s stops, you know?”
He sat up slowly, resting his back on the bus door. “Emily, I don’t know a damn thing.”
She giggled. “You said an old word. I know what that word means. It’s an old dirty word.”
“Not really,” he said and couldn’t help but grin. The smile was short-lived as he focused back on an important topic. “So you’re saying you never got an implant?”
“Nope, see?” She turned her head and showed Jamie her neck. No little star shape scar where one would have been put in.
“How old are you?”
“Nine and a half.”
“You’re small. I thought you were younger.”
“I’m just a button, Mama says.” She opened her mouth wide. “See?” she pointed at a tooth, then wiggled it. “’Bout to come out. Any day. I keep tryin’ to eat it.”
Jamie leaned toward her open mouth. “Hm. I say you just yank it.”
“Yankkit?”
“Pull it out. It won’t hurt.” He gave her his most sincere expression.
“It’ll bleed like a cut leech,” she squealed, covering her mouth and turning away.
“Wait, okay. Never mind.” He didn’t want his first communication with a human…ohhhhhhh…he felt dizzy again, that loss of connection he first felt when the doctor took out his implant. He needed this girl, Emily, to…what? To explain his entire life to him?
It didn’t matter. Emily poked her head back around to him. “I just don’t want to swallow it in my sleep,” she said in a small voice.
“Ever heard of the Tooth Fairy?” Jamie asked her.
She shook her head, pigtails bobbing.
“If you put a tooth that fell out under your pillow when you sleep, the Tooth Fairy comes and takes it and leaves…a present in its place.” How could he explain money to someone who’d never used an Xchange Credit, much less had heard of money?
One of her bro
wn eyes widened. “A present? If I leave my tooth under my head?”
“Pillow.”
“I ain’t got no pillow.” She looked at Jamie’s shoes.
“She’ll do heads when there’s no pillow.” He reached up and lifted her chin. “So let’s get it out. I’ll pull; you stick your tongue in there.”
It took another hour and two bus stops of convincing, but the deed was done. Emily, who didn’t bleed but a spot, had crawled in back with Jamie and curled up with her head in the crook of his shoulder. She’d decided to tie the tooth to a strand of her hair.
Somehow, Jamie had to come up with a present and not wake her up in the process. He leaned forward as much as he could without disturbing Emily. Hopefully.
A young man sat in the seat next to where Emily had been. Jamie hissed, “Psst.”
The kid turned to him. He had brown hair and wore a beanie. Jamie was getting the hint that anyone with an implant removal had some way of hiding it. He had pale skin and wore a white shirt. He looped an arm over the back of the seat.
“Yeah,” he whispered, looking at Emily. Jamie appreciated that the guy didn’t want to wake her. Maybe he’d been listening.
“This is weird to ask, but do you have any tiny thing that could be a gift for this little girl?”
The guy grinned, whispering, “That little girl is my niece. I’m Uncle Steven.” He held out a hand and Jamie shook it, shocked at how young he was to have a niece. “Heard your conversation. I got something.”
He turned and Jamie guessed he had a bag he was picking through. Steven turned back around and handed Jamie a locket. A solid yellow gold locket.
“Whoa! You want me to…”
“Yeah, it’s her Ma’s. My sister, her name’s Cecily. She said to give it to Emily at the right time, when she missed her most. But I like the Tooth Fairy story. What’s that from?”
Jamie smiled and took the locket. “It’s old lore. I used to teach history.” He untied the tooth with nimble fingers, and then tied the chain of the locket in its place. “Thanks, this is great.”
Steven watched Jamie a moment. “You’re adapting so fast, man. Most people are all crazy when they get it took out. You’re fine. Did you know something?”
Jamie shook his head. “No clue about anything, and that’s still the same. I just feel…weird, like I’m…I don’t know.”
“Missing the world. Or the link to feeling a part of it. Right, yeah?” He raised his eyebrows.
Jamie thought about it. “Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.”
Steven looked at Emily as though she were a baby doe. “You was real nice to her. You know,” he looked back to Jamie. “I’m good at reading people. I can see you talk like an educated man; accent from out west. And that’s where Cecily’s from, not me. We was raised different cause—well, that’s just a lot you don’t need to worry about. But she’s been tryin’ to get us out there for two months now. She and Emily, well, they used to go all over the Earth and I’m afraid my ways since Cec’s been gone have rubbed off on Em. Em’s impressionable. She reads people, too, but she takes them on. Like she’s them. I just check it out and I can tell you’re a good one. Somethin’ bad happened to you and you’re gonna make it right. If you want to do that, then you talk to my sis, Cecily.”
It was a lot to take in. Jamie listened to every word the man uttered like he’d never heard sound before. He tried to absorb every detail, every nuance. “I’d love to meet her. To be honest,” and he could say this to a guy who just basically said Jamie gave him an awesome first impression, “I have no clue where to go or what to do once I get there.”
“Where in Phoenix?”
Could he say it? He put the tip of his tongue to his front teeth, and then the name just flowed out. No problem at all. “Tempe.”
“Cecily’s not too far from there. Apache Junction, it used to be called, till the water dried up.” He said this in the quietest voice he’d used yet, and then added, “You stick with me. We’ll figure it out.” Steven looked eight years older when he said that.
Emily wiggled in her slumber, cracking open an eye. “Oh, hi, Jamie.” Her mouth dropped. The other eye popped wide open. She grabbed her hair and found the locket. “Oh! This is Mama’s locket! How did the Tooth Fairy know? How did she get it?”
Jamie told her, “The Tooth Fairy never tells.”
Chapter 11
Deborah dropped Jamie, Steven, and Emily off at an old way station where Apache Junction once was a quiet suburb far east of Phoenix. The bus hummed away into the desert on its tracks, speeding up so fast Jamie hardly saw it before it disappeared.
Heat enveloped them. Waves of oven-like air made Jamie instantly sweat. He wished he could pull his hair back, but felt he shouldn’t risk showing his bandages, even if there wasn’t a soul in sight. The station didn’t seem to be inhabited.
“This is the safest way to go,” Steven said, holding his hand out to Emily. She looked frightened and took his hand.
During the last hour of the trip, Jamie had told Steven and Emily his tale leading up until now. He left out grisly details for Emily’s sake, but Steven’s eyes said he knew what horrors Jamie had known and done.
He wanted these two lone souls he’d be traveling with to trust him, to hear his side. Then he hoped that would give them the kind of trust he had to get them to tell him what he didn’t know… that great truth, the big secret of the implants. But he hadn’t gotten the chance. The electric bus was too fast, and they’d arrived in Apache Junction before he could ask any questions. He could only think of one that was now appropriate.
“What next?”
Steven glanced up at Jamie, then down at Emily. “We walk. I got a map.” He put down his bag and dug through it, pulling out a paper letter. “Cec sent it on the bus two months ago. Deborah gave it to me. Take a look. You from here, you might know how to read it better. And you need help, Jamie. Cecily can help you.”
He handed the map to Jamie. After looking it over, he said, “This is a map to a place that was called Gold Canyon. It was deserted in the 2030s. Looks like there’s an apartment complex she wants you to go to.”
Steven squinted up at the brutal sun. “How far is it?”
“Pretty far by foot. We’ll need water. Lots of water. And food.” He looked up and down the empty, forsaken road. “Did she send a letter? Anything about where to get supplies?” And, Jamie wondered, how would they buy them without Xchange Credits?
“Nope,” said Steven. “Just the map.”
Emily dropped Steven’s hand and waved her arms in the air, staring at the station. “Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, can you help us?”
Steven grabbed her close to him and said, “Hush. What you thinkin’?”
Jamie tensed, scanning the station for who or what Emily saw.
“There,” Steven said in a low voice. “I saw clothing. Someone ducked behind the left side, where the platform used to end.”
The three of them exchanged confused expressions. Jamie made the decision. “We’re not going to survive out here without help. I’ll go. You two stay here.”
Steven said, “I can take care of myself.”
“You need to watch after Emily.” Jamie started walking toward the left side of the building, hopping off the broken platform and peeking around the side. He saw a woman wrapped in a blue, flowing tunic with a turban on her head. She quickly ducked behind the back of the building. He soundlessly followed her until it was time to turn the corner, and he crouched down, peeking low to the ground to see what was behind the station.
Old electric cars that had long since stopped working laid on their sides, rusting. What had once been a family restaurant plaza was now full of broken tables and chairs. Sand covered everything. The woman was nowhere to be seen, but footprints in the sand led to the station’s back door.
Jamie straightened up and walked around the corner to the restaurant plaza. He couldn’t imagine a time when people would want to sit in the heat afte
r a trip, but those winter months could be pretty nice. He supposed that’s when this place once saw customers, if ever.
The door leading into the station and the rest of the restaurant was to Jamie’s right. The glass was intact and the reflection of the sun made it so that he couldn’t see inside. He had to risk it—just go in and hope for the best. Steven’s sister wouldn’t send her daughter and brother into a massacre, but things could have changed since she sent the map.
In a few steps, he was in front of the door. He reached out and touched the wooden handle, then pulled the door open.
A blast of cool air hit him and he felt like he could breathe for the first time since having his implant removed. There was air in here! There must be electricity, but the lights were out. He couldn’t see more than three feet in front of him.
A woman’s voice said softly, “And you are?”
He went inside, letting the door shut behind him. “Jamie.” His eyes adjusted slowly, and he saw the form of the woman in the blue tunic about ten feet away, just out of reach of the sunlight coming from the skylights.
This must have been a really nice way station in the 20s, he thought.
“Them outside?”
“Steven and Emily. Their sister sent them here. We met on the way.” The cool air drying sweat on his body gave him chills. “We mean no harm,” he added. “We actually need help. Can you help us?”
The woman shifted. “What’s the sister’s name?”
“He said it was Cecily.”
She let out a breath, reached to the wall, and flipped a switch. Light from chandeliers with forever flameless bulbs flickered on, illuminating the once dark space.
She stood about five-foot-four, had brown tendrils coming out from her turban, and carried a semi-automatic machine gun. Jamie had never seen one outside of a museum.
“How did you get that gun? Oh, man. Does it work?” It all rushed out. He wanted to hold it so badly. The historian in him overpowered any sense of danger. It didn’t even occur to him that the weapon had probably been pointed at him moments ago.
Disconnected (Implanted Book 1) Page 4