As I sit here thinking, watching Adam plummet into some unknown reality, I realize that Alaska was not a test for me. I did nothing there. It was a test for Adam. It was a test for him from the start. From the moment we walked into that hangar and that Chinook was waiting there for him. I know this because seeing that helicopter would have done nothing for me.
It only got worse with Adam seeing President Berkley, knowing he was supposed to be on a mission for the President. Then being forced to execute someone. Although, I think he did it freely. That man was one of his captors. One of the men that filled his chest with scars. That filled his head with scars. And I can’t say I blame him. After all, I was ready to shoot Crane in the head once.
The Entities haven't just been working on me. They've been testing the both of us. I think Adam was chosen for me long before I realized I wanted him. Out of all the people on the planet the Entities plucked us from the population and started priming us. I’m not sure what their final assignment will be for us, but I get the feeling that they are trying to create the perfect rulers: the ruthless soldier and the merciful scientist or nurse or mother. I guess I’m not perfectly certain what they are trying to turn me into. I just know that I’m not the same, and that I may never be the same. Who could be the same after all of this?
I just know that now I have to help him. I can’t let this weigh on his conscience along with everything else. It’s already ruining him. He took a bullet for me. Not in his chest or his body. He took it from me, and delivered it to someone else so I wouldn’t have that sin weighing on my conscience. I’m not sure if it was out of confusion or love or the need to protect. But there’s only one thing I can do. Something I’ve never done. I’ve never thought of doing before all of these changes. It’s something that I’ll never be able to forgive myself for doing. And when I’m done, I know it will change me for good, forever. It will probably drain the last drop of compassion left in my body. But I have no choice. I’m sure this must be another test for Adam, but I just can’t let him shoulder all this himself. Not again. I just hope Lina and Sam will recognize me when I get home. So much has happened out here that I’m not sure I’ll recognize myself when we get back.
I stand and walk towards Adam. If he notices me moving, he doesn’t let me know it. I reach out and take the pistol from Adam’s hand. He lets me take it and with its weight, I feel the burden of this task. I walk towards the impersonator who is waiting in an empty barn stall. His hands tied behind his back. Just another animal, I tell myself. I try to convince myself. Animals die every day. And we’re going to have to put down all those mutated animals. So one man for at least twenty animals. It sounds even, right?
“What are you doing, Andie?” Adam finally asks. He has walked up behind me. Silent. He’s always so silent.
I see out of my periphery that the others, Alexander and John, are just watching. Alexander must be taking notes. Waiting to see what unfolds so he can run back to Crane. So they can hold their own secretive meeting and decide if we’ve passed their tests. I don’t know why Alexander said he’s just like me. I might have seen it before. But not now.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to the impersonator as the pounding in my head worsens.
I don’t give myself time to think. I know there can be no hesitation whatsoever, because if I hesitate, I’ll never be able to do this. I have to do this. I have to do it for Adam. If it’s the last thing I can do for him.
I hear some strange sound coming from the back of someone’s throat. It comes from my throat. I remember how Adam taught me to shoot a gun. I grip the pistol with both hands and adjust my feet. Running my index finger over the cool metal, I set it on the trigger. And then, I do something I never thought I could. I shoot that man, the impersonator. I shoot him between the eyes. Like Adam did to Norman. Like I’ve envisioned doing to Crane so many times. Like the cold-blooded killer I accused Adam of being.
Why would I do that? How could I do that? I have to show them that they need to fear me. The Entities need to know that I could be ruthless, that I could be dangerous, that I am not afraid to end a threat.
I don’t have time to recover, to explain my actions for shooting this man in cold blood. Because my headache intensifies. Bright stars shoot across my vision, obstructing it. I click the safety on the pistol. Just in time as it falls out of my trembling hand clanging onto the ground. I try to grasp my hands together, to make it stop, but I can’t. They’re shaking too hard. The headache worsens. The stars become brighter. I hope to reach out and grab something as the trembling spreads to my legs, my knees. I have a sickening feeling in my stomach. Something is terribly wrong. When I open my mouth nothing comes out. Instead, I feel a cold breeze blow over my body, which is strange because it’s so hot here in the plains, in the middle of summer. Just as I feel my body sinking to the ground, my vision is gone. All I have of the sense is a blinding white brightness. My ears whistle with ringing. Then, there is just darkness.
CHAPTER twenty-five
I used to count things, the lines on the side of the road, signs, and window panes. I used to make sure they always added up to an even number. It was a compulsion, an obsession. It was how I coped with boredom. How I coped with a life I couldn’t control. How I coped when my mind was running a million miles an hour and I had no way to slow it down. But there are no lines painted on the asphalt, there is no asphalt. And there are no striped mile marker signs on the side of the rails. There are no houses out here. The train moves too fast, there's nothing to count, nothing to stop this fluttering in my head. It’s turned into headaches, sending stars of light screaming through my vision. I tell myself to sleep, to relax, but it is too hard knowing that we have more stops and I have more problems to solve. Problems that were never mine, that became mine when a group of men decided my future for me. I close my eyes, trying to close out the voices coming from the engine car and the shallow breathing coming from the Guardians. There is another sound. One that I can barely hear. A smooth, metallic flowing sound. I recognize it as the train sliding over the tracks. Every few moments there is a tiny almost imperceptible clack. It must be the breaks in the metal tracks where the lines are melded together. The sound seems to be evenly spaced. I listen closely, clack-clack, two. Clack-clack, four. Clack-clack, six.
--
There are few moments when I think I might be alert. When I can feel an annoying itch on my back, but I can’t quite reach it. It feels like it’s below the Galena District flame. It must be my new double-helix. At least John took the time to make sure the brand was there. To show that I completed the test before I was brought to the train.
I thought when Crane said we were going out to unite the Districts it was because there were uprising, because the people weren't coping with the changes. Now I see what he was really doing. He was uniting the Districts through us. It was a grand introduction. He was sending the both of us to meet the Entities, to pass our tests, to earn my badges, to solidify that this plan they had created was going to be successful. Now I understand much more than I ever wanted to. I understand why Crane made the decisions he did. Why he treated me the way he did. I may understand it. I don't have to like it.
--
I can hear them talking. By the smell I know I’m in the hospital. I am in Phoenix. I can hear the voice of Dr. Akiyama.
“It’s full blown eclampsia. We could have held it off if she had returned sooner. It’s too late now, she needs magnesium sulfate. We don’t have the means to manufacture that here.”
“What about the alcohol?” I hear Sam’s voice.
I keep my eyes closed. The pounding in my head is too strong to open them.
“Alcohol is easy to manufacture here, but it has nasty side effects. She can’t walk around drunk for weeks. And after she delivers there is still the chance the seizures could come back.”
Ah, yes, alcohol. A little yeast, a little heat, every chemist knows alcohol is easy to make. When I hear that’s what they’ve been giving me
I struggle to open my eyes.
“Andie?” Adam sits at my side.
I try to move my head but it’s dizzy and foggy. I feel drunk.
“Where is Lina?” I slowly ask.
“She’s fine. She’s at home with Blithe and the other children,” Adam answers.
I see Sam and Dr. Akiyama walk to the bedside, noticing I’m awake.
“Take the baby,” I tell them. “Take the baby out.”
“It’s too early. You know that,” Dr. Akiyama replies.
“We could take her back to Hanford,” Adam suggests.
“No.” I try to shake my head. “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving Lina again,” I mumble out unsure if they can even hear me.
“They don’t have the medication she needs there,” I hear Crane’s voice from the other side of the room. He must be watching, planning.
“Can’t they make it?” I hear Morris’ voice. I turn to see him sitting in a wheelchair at the end of my bed.
“That could take days, weeks even,” Crane replies.
“What about the hospitals out there?” Sam asks. “If there is any stock left at the abandoned hospitals couldn’t we use that?”
Dr. Akiyama rubs his forehead. “If you could find it and if it’s still sterile. Or if you could find the compounding agents from the hospital pharmacy we could use that.”
“I’ll go,” I hear Sam say.
“No,” I push out. “You can’t risk your life for mine. You don’t know what it’s like out there, Sam.”
The blood pressure cuff squeezes my arm. When it’s done I hear the monitor alarm behind me.
“You all need to leave. Her pressures are up again,” Dr. Akiyama tells the room. I watch as he turns the lock on my IV tubing. I get that foggy feeling in my head, worse than before. He just increased my dose of intravenous alcohol, it knocks me out instantly.
--
Sometimes I can hear them talking. Other times I can sense someone is in the room but I can’t bear to open my eyes with the headache and the feeling of being perpetually drunk. It’s an old method. A risky method. One that’s making my liver work harder and risking the baby being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. I can tell it hasn't been working. The headaches don’t go away. The blood pressure monitor keeps alarming. I need the magnesium.
I’ve seen this happen in the NICU before, when even the magnesium didn’t work. Mother’s delivering early only to have the eclampsia rebound and the seizures continue. A few even died while their infants survived, motherless.
I manage to open my eyes when I hear Lina singing at my bedside. Adam and Sam are there with her. I have just enough energy to reach out and push her hair out of her face before the monitors start beeping again and Sam takes her away.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Adam tells me from the foot of the bed.
“Where?” I ask. It feels like they lowered my dose. Moving seems easier, my head a little clearer. But my lips still feel a little numb.
“Crane spoke with Hanford. They’re making the medication. But we have to check the nearby hospitals to see if they still have the chemicals. Hanford is sending out a crew to check their nearby hospitals, also.”
“Don’t go,” I beg.
“It will be fine, Andie," Adam tells me. He looks out the window, not making any attempt to walk closer to me.
I look out the window, noticing for the first time snow is falling. “It’s winter?” I ask
“Yes.”
“It’s so early.” I can only assume it’s from the red ocean, it’s still disrupting the weather patterns. “Won’t the tracks be covered with snow and ice?”
“Yes, but someone has an idea about that. Ian got the third reactor running. We’re going to divert some of the current to the track. The heat will melt the snow and ice, keeping the tracks clear. Ian thinks it will work for a few hundred miles. Far enough to get us out of the bad weather.”
“How do you know it will work?”
“It will work.”
I don’t want him to leave. “Last time you left, you know what he did to me. I have no protection here. I can’t protect Lina from the hospital. I can’t do this. You can’t do this. You can’t leave me like this.”
“I'm sorry, Andie, but I’m going. I'm sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry that the baby is mine and it’s making you so sick. I just can’t seem to stop hurting you.”
It must be the stress of the conversation. I can feel my vision start to blur before the blood pressure monitor alarms. “Don’t go,” I continue to argue. My voice barely above a whisper.
He starts pacing the room. And turning to the window he says, “You’ll both be fine, Andie, because... because Crane is going with us.”
Suddenly my tongue is heavy. I have that cool feeling. Like after I shot that man. I can’t tell him it’s coming before it hits, another seizure. I hear Adam yell for the doctor.
--
I’m not sure how much time passes. At times I sense someone is in the room with me. A familiar smell. Not like Adam, but someone else. Someone else that I know who smells faintly of lemons. But I can’t find the energy to open my eyes.
The alcohol has warded off the nightmares I used to have. Now, I dream of colors, fields of flowers, Lina laughing in the sunlight. It’s nice, nicer than real life almost. Once, Ian was there, just standing in my dream, staring at me, until he opened his mouth and said, “Don’t you see?”
“See what?” I ask, my tongue heavy and thick.
“It’s like seeding a fish tank. The first few inhabitants are destined to death. Their only job is to prepare the waters for future inhabitants, so the future can have a better life.”
I truly am drunk.
--
“Is she awake?” I hear Crane’s voice.
“She should be lucid,” Dr. Akiyama replies. “I’ve weaned her off the alcohol. The magnesium should be taking affect now.”
“What do you want, Crane?” I ask, opening my eyes, the lids heavy, feeling like they’ve been glued shut.
He shifts nervously on his feet. Morris sits at his side in a wheelchair. He wheels out of the room without saying anything to me. For the first time since I’ve met Crane I can tell he doesn’t want to tell me something and he’s having a hard time hiding it.
“What do you want?” I repeat.
“We retrieved the medication. Dr Akiyama is prepping the operating room for you,” Crane replies.
I look around the room. It’s just Crane and the Doctor.
“Where’s Adam?” I ask.
Crane and Dr. Akiyama look at each other. Dr. Akiyama shrugs.
“Can she know?” Crane asks the doctor.
I find this strange, since Crane never asks anyone for their opinion when it comes to me. “Where’s Adam?” I repeat.
“He didn’t make it, Andromeda,” Crane tells me.
Something is wrong. He’s not speaking to me in that tone, that horribly condescending tone.
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
They wait, looking at each other then back to me.
“Adam! Adam!” I yell towards the hallway. I can see the shadow of a Volker outside my door.
“He’s not here,” Crane tells me.
“What do you mean he's not here? Adam!” I yell one last time.
Morris rolls into the room and up to my bedside, taking my hand in his he tells me, “He’s not here, Andie. I'm so sorry. He’s gone.”
“I don’t believe you,” I tell Morris. I turn towards Crane. “What did you do to him out there, Crane? Was that your reason for going? So you could get rid of him?”
“I did nothing to him. He died to save you, to save the baby. It was the ultimate act of bravery,” Crane replies.
“I don’t believe you. What happened?”
Crane doesn’t usually answer to questions, except this time he does. “We ran into a group of Survivors while gathering the supplies needed for the Hanford District to compound the magnesium sulfate. T
hey were brutal. Savages. Just like I had feared.” Crane stops speaking to adjust his tie. Probably loosening it from around his guilty neck. “Crossbender was sending a helicopter to retrieve us from the hospital rooftop where we had been cornered. We lost twelve Volker up there, and Colonel Waters, just as the helicopter showed up. He threw me the package of chemicals, telling me to get on board, that he would cover me…”
“And?” I interrupt his pause.
“That’s when the Survivors broke through our barricade. He didn’t make it to the helicopter.”
“So what, you took off without him?”
“No, then I would have taken more of the blame. They had guns and other weapons. Crude weapons. Somehow. I wish we were outfitted with bulletproof gear. If we had just waited for the Hanford people to show up before going in. But Colonel Waters pushed us to go inside. He said we didn’t have time to sit around and wait. Anyways, he took a round to the chest, point blank.”
“So you just left him there? How could you?”
“You don’t understand, Andromeda, it was too dangerous.”
I swallow hard, fighting back the sensation which can only be tears. Adam had already given up on me. He told me so on the way to Wolf Creek. He had no reason to risk his life for me. It can't be true. None of this can be real. It has to be one of the nightmares that haunt me when Adam’s not there to hold me at night. I close my eyes, taking deep breaths, and try to wake myself.
After a few moments I hear the steady squeak of a rotating tire. The door closes. It’s over, finally, I think to myself. I open my eyes to see Crane sitting at the foot of my bed.
“Go away,” I tell Crane, trying to hide the shake in my voice. “I’m not afraid of you, or your lies.”
“You’re not dreaming, Andromeda.”
It can only be a dream. “This is just another nightmare,” I tell him.
The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation Page 52