She tore her eyes away from the class and made her way back up to the medical wing. She felt worse for Dr. Askel. Not only had he been the only one able to help the wounded after the raid, he also had to deal with the people he couldn’t save. Some of whom were still children. Even with their advanced medicine the things explosions did to the human body weren’t so easily healed. He took it hard.
He sat, day in and day out, tending to the wounded, comforting in the final moments and last breaths. The cries that floated out from the medical ward were worse than those in the cave-in. When rubble and debris stood in your way of saving someone that was one story. Having to look in the eyes of someone pleading for help as their limbs hung in shreds or were completely missing was an entirely different story.
And then Callum became ill. When he died, it was as if Dr. Askel shut down. He seldom left the medical wing, sleeping there on most nights. He reported to Gemi what she needed to know. Kept her updated on who had what symptoms and where they were medicine-wise. But the sweet old man she had grown accustomed to, the one who had comforted her and been by her side from what she could remember, was fading away.
Gemi pushed the door open and peered in through the crack. Allon lay on his bed, still strapped down and unmoving. Whatever the doctor had given him must have been strong. She only hoped he passed peacefully. But the fact that they were all but out of the medicine needed to control the seizing made it doubtful. It also left more space for suffering if one of them deteriorated. That was just another reason for them to find a way out. She would rather go down fighting than locked up and waiting for the inevitable.
Dr. Askel stepped out of the bathroom that connected with the room and nodded in her direction. He rubbed at his eyes, the purple hue and bags standing out more than that morning. It looked as though hadn’t slept a full night in days and left Gemi wondering if he was having symptoms that he kept from her.
“How’s he doing?” she asked from the entrance.
“Hasn’t made a peep since this morning.”
“That’s good then, right?”
“It means the drugs are doing their job.”
Gemi stepped inside and leaned against the wall, letting the door close behind her.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. Tired, as I suspect we all are.”
“Have you had any symptoms? Any memories?”
Dr. Askel shook his head and picked up a book that was lying open on the desk. Gemi couldn’t make out the title from where she was standing, but it looked rather old, possibly even pre-chip-era old.
“It’s a good thing that you’re not having any symptoms, but don’t you find it weird that you haven’t had any new memories?”
“I’m an old man. Dementia was bound to set in one of these days, it just happened a lot sooner and all at once in my case. I’m just thankful that the rest of my health is intact.” He closed the book around his index finger and fixated on her. “Besides, it left medicine to be used on people that needed it. And someone around with a little know-how.”
“I have no clue what we would do without you.”
“All things considered, I imagine you would be exactly where you are now.” His gaze flickered back to the book in his hands.
Gemi slid out the door knowing that was all the conversing he wanted to be a part of for the day. It was how all of their conversations went when he wasn’t doling out information on his patients.
Voices echoed through the corridor to her. The last class would be done and all chores nearly completed. The day would come to an end within the hour only to begin again the following morning.
Just like it had every day since getting stranded.
It was shaping up to be one of those days where she reached her limit on social interactions long before the day was officially over. She turned away from the doctor’s office, following the halls to her bedroom before the masses made their way to the sleeping quarters and avoiding any accidental run-ins.
Besides the rooftop, her bedroom was her favorite place in the entire building. Save for the wayward visitor, it left her alone to her own devices. Gave her space to stop pretending to be the strong leader that every other part of the day forced her to be.
She slipped out of her boots, placed her pistol on the nightstand, and collapsed onto her bed. It let out a large creak, giving away its crappy build. After all, every piece of the base they now occupied was several years past expiration.
It was a wonder more things hadn’t fallen apart during their stay. She chalked it up to the fact that for the most part, the place had seemed hardly worn-in. From what she understood, things grew so rapidly it was only used for the transition period during the build-out of the newer and improved facilities.
Gemi moved to unclip her belt when a noise in the corner of her room drew her attention. It sounded like a low airy whistle, barely audible, but crude enough to give away the person behind it.
“What do you want, Sann?” Gemi called into the shadows.
“You have some superhuman hearing, do you realize that?”
Gemi swung her fatigued legs off the bed and grabbed the lantern off her nightstand, turning it on as she moved. She stalked toward the door, her little bubble of light illuminating the dark edges of her room. Sitting in the chair nestled between the door and her lopsided, half-empty bookshelf sat Sann.
Ever relaxed and ever smug.
“I said, what do you want?” She reached for the handle of the door and cracked it open, giving herself a quick exit if he tried anything stupid again.
“Are you ever going to forgive me?” Sann asked, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“For which offense?”
Sann tilted his head and a wry smile spread across his face. The same tension from before coiled in her stomach. It was something about the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her. It made her want to run and punch him at the same time. She might have done both if she hadn’t noticed the slight shift in his posture as she glared at him. His defense mechanism was always to be a jackass, even if there were serious issues to be discussed.
“Did you come here for a reason or just to piss me off?”
“What did I ever do to cause such hostility?”
“The list is growing, but we can start with you trying to kill me fifty-six times and end with—”
“To be fair...” Sann scooched farther forward, holding up his palms to her. “You killed me several times. Including bludgeoning me over the head with a rock. I mean what’s up with that? How much pent-up aggression and bitterness does one person have to have to react like that. And for what? Okay, I attempted to drown you, but it was loving, I swear.”
“Are you done? I would like to get back to bed.”
“Is that an offer?” Sann leaned back in the chair, his aggravating grin taking over his face once again.
“There are plenty of objects I can bludgeon you with in this room, Sann.”
“Okay, okay. Jeez. You're no fun. The reason I came was because I saw Allon first thing this morning. I debated on even telling you in the kitchen before—”
“And?” She didn’t have the energy to get into the details of the before part.
“He seems to be doing worse. Which is concerning because he would be the second of our group that’s following the same path to death. He's been rambling a lot. And the one thing he keeps saying over and over revolves around how this blonde girl is evil.”
“Okay. So he's losing it and rambling.”
“You know, I find myself staring at a blonde girl this very moment.”
Gemi's jaw tightened. It appeared the cat was out of the bag a lot sooner than she anticipated, by a large margin. It wouldn’t be long before he told Jaxton. And everything would blow up soon after.
“You look like you’re hiding something,” Sann said, drawing her out of her own head.
“Just trying to work out a plan.”
“Yeah well, you’re the
boss, so figure it out.”
“Oh thanks, I'm sure sleep will come easily after that.”
“Glad I can be of service.” Sann stood up and pulled the door open all the way. With one hand on the knob he turned back to face her. “Hey, Gem, how much of your real life do you remember?”
“Enough to remember I hate being called Gem.”
Sann winked at her before exiting the room and closing the door behind him.
Gemi set the lantern down on the nightstand and switched it off before flopping on the bed. If it wasn't bad enough that they were locked up with dwindling supplies, now they had to worry about when each of them would go crazy. And when that came about, it seemed as though they would all be after the blonde girl.
Gemi closed her eyes and watched the list of allies she had flash to zero in her head.
CHAPTER THREE
After several hours of restless sleep, Gemi got up and wandered the halls. The air was muggy, causing her shirt to cling to her frame and her hair to clump at the nape of her neck. Nights always brought that about. With summer in full swing, the air got thicker at night despite the temperature drop, and with no windows and the one door on the roof, it would hang in the air, turning the place into a sauna.
All was still. Everyone would be sleeping or enjoying their free time alone. Except for the two guards posted at the entrance. Even though it was blocked with rubble, blown up in the attack just like the tunnel, everyone felt safer with a lookout.
Gemi paused in front of the entrance to the medical wing and held her ear to the door. The last thing she wanted was to wake Dr. Askel or Allon if they were finally getting some much-needed sleep. Soft snoring floated out to her. She hoped it was the doctor.
On her last rove of the floor, she stopped by the watch post. Both men sat on the ground surrounded by a soft glow. They were quietly laughing as they played a game of cards. She couldn't help but feel envious as she hung back in the darkness.
They carried on with their lives as if the whole situation was normal with no regard for how much danger they were in. Sure they had survived the attack. In their head, the enemy remained on the opposite side of the walls with no way in. They had no idea that a far more serious threat roamed the halls with them, already inside. One that they looked up to. Trusted.
The sad part was that’s how they were told to act, from the minute they arrived at base. It was yelled at and beat into them that they shouldn’t ask questions, to do what they were told. Something that never registered with her or the rest of the test survivors.
Gemi ducked back and headed toward the roof. It seemed like the only place she could think. And she really needed to think of a plan.
The fresh air hit her like a smack in the face. It was refreshing and overwhelming at the same time to go from stale air to the light breeze.
Gemi leaned on the ledge and peered into the darkness searching for the small specks of light several stories below that indicated the individual camps set up around the building. The number had been dwindling over the past month. It was either a good sign, the affected believing that they had died out and moving on. Or, they had finally stopped being civil and began killing each other off. That’s how it was when the chips first shut off. She was still more than a little surprised that the anti-chippers could wrangle the affected in. But it wasn’t without incident. Gemi watched more than a few snap and attack the others. At least it wasn’t exactly like the tests. Not yet anyways.
Gemi breathed a heavy sigh. Every night she ran the numbers in her head, calculated how much longer they could survive. And then she thought of the many ways that everything could go wrong. Death from the inside was the main possibility. Although, if they found a way out, there was a significant likelihood of the rest of the staff joining the anti-chippers. After all, none of them were chipped and it would be a means of survival. Who knew what the game plan would be after the military fell completely?
Wherever Dagmar was she hoped he suffered. After all the trouble he’d caused. After everything he took from her. She prayed the crazy ones found him first. It would be poetic justice to have what his sick brain thought up happen to him. He would know true fear when a knife sank slowly inside his stomach and glided up until his organs rested on the outside of his body. He could cry and beg, but nothing would stop him from bleeding out in the dirt. Cold and alone.
Gemi squinted into the moonlight. Her limbs suddenly felt heavy as if cinder blocks had been tied to them and tossed into the ocean. She slid down the wall and rested her head against the cool surface. Voices carried up to her from below, but they muffled before forming words, as her ears joined the rest of her body in the murkiness of the water.
She allowed her eyes to close and let go, her mind filling with a tune that was all too familiar and at the same time not. It was soft and gloomy, holding a hint of better days to come.
The smell of smoke hit her before her brain registered that she had fallen asleep. Gemi’s eyes shot open. She dragged herself up using the ledge as support and scanned the ground below with blurry, sleep-laden eyes.
It didn’t take long before she found the source. One of the campfires had caught something ablaze and spread fast through the tall grass. With the added light, Gemi watched as bodies ran around frantically attempting to extinguish it. It was like the apartment complex all over again. Except this time if it spread to them nothing could stop it from catching their building on fire. Trapped like hamsters in a cage, they would burn alive in their tomb.
Gemi shielded her mouth with her shirt as the smoke reached her, burning her eyes and stinging her nose. She watched the shadows running about. Heard them hacking and coughing as the wind gusted and swallowed them up in a cloud of smoke.
Gemi gripped the ledge as an all too familiar sensation of déjà vu washed over her. Her heartbeat thrashed in her ears as she tried and failed to slow down the ragged breaths that came in bursts. The world tilted on its axis and she dropped to her knees. Everything exploded in a burst of orange light. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes trying to force her vision to return to normal.
When she slid her hands away and opened her eyes, she stared into the face of a man. Even as he rippled and swayed in her vision, she could see the blood that coated his body and the glimmer of the knife he clutched in his hand.
“No, no, no.” She fell onto her butt and used her elbows to back away from him. “This isn’t real.” She twisted her fingers in her hair and screwed her eyes shut. “This isn’t real. You’re not real. You’re not real…”
After a few forced breaths she peeked out from between her elbows. The man was gone, leaving her once again alone on the rooftop surrounded in the thickening smoke emanating from below.
Gemi let her body slump back onto the ground. Her limbs felt rubbery as they recovered from the effects of her sudden adrenaline surge. It was as if she had run up a mountain while holding her breath. Every part of her struggled to return to its natural state.
Once she thought her legs would support her, she pulled herself off the ground and leaned her stomach against the ledge. The world was still moving in chaotic waves below.
In a time of crisis, it became easier to tell the difference between the anti-chippers and the others. The ones with at least some semblance of sanity were trying to, and so far succeeding at, keep the fire contained. The others, the ones affected by the chips being shut off were either mesmerized by the flames, or were pushing people into the fire.
There was no way to tell for sure, not while they were held up at the base, but Gemi had a sinking feeling that the number of anti-chippers was dwindling as the crazy ones acted out. As horrible as it was, something she would never admit out loud, but the anti-chippers being wiped out wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would mean a higher percentage of success if the other mainframe was intact. They just needed to get to it.
A group of shadows burst through the tree line and tossed buckets of water at the flames. They smoked and sputtere
d, their height and girth drastically shrinking.
The door behind Gemi creaked, drawing her attention away from the now smoldering fire. Sann strode toward her, looking as if he had just rolled out of bed. Jammies and all. His overgrown hair stuck up at weird angles adding to his boyish features. It didn’t help that he was also wearing pants that featured tiny ducks splashing in ponds. There was no telling where he got them from, but they definitely weren’t standard issue.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
Gemi turned her back on him and focused on the scene below without an answer. He was the king of stupid questions.
“Yeah, me either.”
He sagged against the ledge next to her, the warmth of his body radiating off of him. Gemi shivered, her resistance to his presence waning once she realized how cold she was. Her freak-out had done a number on her.
“What’s going on down there?”
“Fire. It’s under control.”
“Ten to one, one of those crazy assholes started it.”
Gemi wrapped her arms around herself and sidestepped away from him. “Probably.”
“How many did they take out?”
“Who knows?” Gemi moved a little farther away, trying her best to give him the subtle hint that she didn’t want him there without telling him to go to hell. He never listened when she did anyways.
“Maybe they’ll wipe out all the anti-chippers. Then we would only have one problem on our hands.”
Leave it to Sann to say the things that most rational people would keep to themselves.
“So about earlier…”
Gemi curled her toes and forced the tips into the sole of her boot as she took a deep, exaggerated breath. She hoped he would just let the topic die. He seemed to lean that way when he turned up her room.
“Just so you know, I have a gun on me and plan on finishing what I started if you come anywhere near me.” Gemi turned to face him, letting the full force of her glare be visible to him.
“I don’t doubt it,” Sann laughed, “I know what you must have been thinking so I’m sorry for that.”
Paroxysm (Book 2): Paroxysm Aftermath Page 3