Paroxysm (Book 2): Paroxysm Aftermath

by Ashleigh Reynolds

  “I've lived here for a very, very long time. Look, why don't you both relax? Put her down and we can talk. You're both armed, I'm not and I'm by myself. If you wanted to kill me, I assure you, you would have no problems doing so.”

  Jaxton glanced at Sann who raised both eyebrows in the air as if agreeing with the man. Jaxton let out a grunt and moved toward the stretcher and placed Gemi down as gently as possible. He then turned back to the man leaving his body to block her.

  “After all you've seen out there, are you seriously scared of me?” he asked as if reading his thoughts.

  “Not scared, but wary of a man who lives alone and invites armed strangers into his hiding spot.”

  “Well, you're welcome for the whole saving you thing.”

  Sann laughed and holstered his gun. “He's fun.”

  “Now,” the man said as he got up from his chair and crossed to the far side of the counter where he opened a cabinet and pulled out two bottles of water. “From what I understand and by that I mean what I heard before communication dropped off was that the military was completely overthrown. No survivors.” He handed them water bottles and stepped back. “Judging by the way you three are dressed you sure look like military. So either the news outlets were wrong and some of you survived or you’re part of the group who overthrew it and now you’re working on this building.”

  Jaxton leaned back on the stretcher. “So why let us in?”

  “Morbid curiosity.”

  “Have you lost it like the others?” Sann asked between gulps of the water.

  Jaxton tossed his on an empty stretcher. There was no way to tell if he had laced the water with something. Well, that wasn't actually true. Sann volunteered himself as guinea pig when he willingly took something from a stranger.

  “I assure you that I'm perfectly sane and just as interested as you in discovering a means to restore the chips. That's why I'm here.”

  “Wait.” Sann stepped toward the man. “I know who you are. Holy shit, I can't believe it.”

  “Who is he?” Jaxton straightened up, his hand dropping to his gun.

  “You're Dr. Jefferies right?” Sann said to the man, completely ignoring Jaxton and acting like the man in front of him was a god. “But that's impossible. You're dead.”

  Jaxton took a step forward. There was no way he was that Dr. Jefferies. He had died thirty-two years prior.

  “Technically that's correct.” the man said.

  “Wait, what the hell is happening right now? Are you telling me that you are the deceased Dr. Jefferies? The one who created the chip? And if so, why the hell haven't you figured out a way to restore them? There’s a mainframe here. That's the whole reason we risked our lives getting here.”

  Sann glanced between the two of them. “This is freaky, man.”

  Gemi groaned from the bed behind them, putting an instant halt to their conversation.

  “Looks like your friend will be rejoining us.” Dr. Jefferies said, nodding to her writhing body.

  Sann removed his pistol from his holster and Jaxton narrowed his eyes at him. “Don't you dare. I'm sure he has more than enough medicine here to put her back under if we need to.”

  “Why would you need—”

  Dr. Jefferies was cut short as Gemi leaped off the bed and at Jaxton. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated, but there was no doubt that she was attempting to go in for the kill. He pivoted to the side and caught one of her flailing arms, pinning it behind her back at an angle that made him cringe and her attack slow momentarily.

  “Is she one of them?” Dr. Jefferies asked as he rushed to a nearby cabinet and rummaged around, coming back out with a vial and a syringe. “I've been aching to get my hands on one of those chips.”

  Jaxton grabbed Gemi's free arm as it reached for his waistband and gun, and pressed it to her chest, pulling her into him in the same movement. He dodged her head as she swung it back toward his face and twisted to the side, squeezing his arms around her and doing his best to not hurt her but keep her immobile.

  Dr. Jefferies approached them from the side with the needle at the ready.

  “Don't you dare touch her,” Jaxton said through gritted teeth.

  “It's only a sedation.”

  Jaxton twisted away from him while still struggling with her. Gemi's strength was coming back the longer he allowed her to be conscious. It was only a matter of time before she hurt herself or one of them, but he certainly wasn't planning on trusting a stranger. A supposedly dead stranger with a needle.

  “Oh for crying out loud.” Sann snatched the syringe from Dr. Jefferies and jabbed it into Gemi's shoulder before Jaxton had the chance to react.

  Her movements slowed as her muscles gave out on her. Within seconds her body was limp in his arms. But she was breathing. He hoisted her up in his arms and settled her back down on the gurney.

  “Never do that again!” he yelled as he swept the matted hair from her face.

  “Well, that was exciting,” Dr. Jefferies said from behind them. “I haven't gotten the chance to see one up close. I've been barricaded in here since I woke up.”

  “What do you mean woke up?” Sann asked.

  “Ah well, when I said you were technically right about me dying I was being truthful. I was in a terrible accident one night. A machine we were working on exploded and I got pinned under heavy debris. I had extensive injuries and even I knew I wouldn’t make it. We had been working on a system to cryogenically freeze people. I encouraged a colleague to use it on me to minimize the tissue damage and allow them time to heal anything that they needed to.”

  Sann and Jaxton stared at them with gaping mouths.

  “You have to understand,” he continued, “this was long before we had all this fancy medicine we have now. I'm talking I had severe internal bleeding and a severed spinal cord. Problem was, I was forgotten about for a very, very long time. I was woken up a few years ago by a fellow doctor, one who worked at the military base I assume you're from. According to history I was very much dead and my legacy had been taken over by a man who had been working on my team. So I made a decision to stay dead and live here. Take the extra time to work on various projects.”

  He wiped the back of his hand over his brow and regarded them. “Lord, listen to me ramble. I haven’t had company in ages and I sometimes forget myself.”

  Jaxton's head was reeling. The man who started it all was standing in the flesh right in front of them. He was better than the mainframe.

  Dr. Jefferies looked between him and Sann when neither one of them spoke, then shuffled over to his desk and sat down in his chair. “Anyways. When everything went to hell in a handbasket, I began researching what could have caused it. Shutting down the chips shouldn't produce this kind of reaction. I've been wanting to get my hands on one of them to study modifications, if any, that were done in my absence. You presented me with the perfect opportunity.”

  “She's not chipped,” Jaxton said, planting his body protectively in front of her again. “None of the military personnel are.”

  Dr. Jefferies raised his eyebrows.

  “She's not chipped, but she is insane,” Sann quipped.

  “Shut up, Sann.”

  “She's acting like one of them.”

  “We've had a long four months.”

  “I mean, it’s hard to say if she's insane or not with how scrambled our brains are.” Sann crossed his arms and grinned at Jaxton.

  He was trying to piss him off, and it was working.

  “Seriously. Shut up, Sann.”

  Dr. Jefferies glanced between the two of them before his eyes rested on Jaxton. “What is he going on about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I can just ask him. He seems to be loose with his lips.” Dr. Jefferies nodded in Sann’s direction and smiled.

  Jaxton clenched his jaw. He just wanted to fix everyone so that he could fix his wife. And that didn’t include time for pleasantries or long-winded backstories.

  Sann f
lopped down on one of the empty stretchers and tossed his gear bag to the ground followed by his boots. “You might as well just tell him.”

  Jaxton let out a slow breath and slid his hands across his face and through his black hair, now hanging wild from the day’s encounters.

  “You heard about Dr. Dagmar I’m assuming?” He took the man’s cock of the head as a yes, then continued. “Well, before he was arrested for tampering with the chips, a few of us caught on to what he was doing and were planning on turning him over to the authorities. Before we had the chance he detained us and ran us through a fun little mind-fucking game. We came out with only fragments of our real memories that are clouded from the many tests he ran us through.” Jaxton leaned back on the bed that Gemi was laying on, his fingers finding her hand and drawing an inner strength from the knowledge that she was at least still alive.

  “Recently,” he continued, "we began experiencing extra side effects. A few of us have gone what some might call insane. It's like your brain goes into overload mode and shuts down leaving you a babbling psychopath. The problem is this one here, she remembered more than any of us. There’s no reason that she should have this kind of reaction, but she is.”

  Dr. Jefferies stared at them with a momentarily stunned expression before he regained his composure. “Well then. There seems to be a little more to the story than the media led on to.”

  “Isn't that always the case?” Sann asked from where he lay on his back.

  “Do you mind if I examine her?”

  Jaxton stiffened. He didn’t like anyone being that close to her especially in her present state.

  “You can hover over me all you wish. I just want to look at something.”

  Jaxton nodded, and the doctor moved toward them in an almost comically slow fashion. He placed his hand on her forehead. “She doesn’t appear to have a fever. Rules out any kind of serious illness. Will you help me turn her onto her side?”

  Jaxton slipped his hands under her shoulder and hip and rolled her onto her side with the back of her neck facing the doctor. Dr. Jefferies pushed her muddy hair off the nape of her neck.

  “She has a scar here.” He pointed his index finger to her hairline and traced the light pink ridge for Jaxton to see.

  “She was chipped once. It was removed when she joined the military.”

  “When was that?”

  “When she was fifteen.”

  The doctor slid his finger over the scar once more. “This is too new. And look, her hair is growing back from where it was shaved. Unless that's the style these days.”

  Jaxton bent over and ran his own fingers across her neck and into her hair. Sure enough, there was a patch that had been buzzed that extended from the start of her hairline up a few inches. It was hardly noticeable unless you were looking close.

  “It could have been something they did for the testing...”

  Dr. Jefferies moved away from them and crossed the room to his computer. Sann sat up and watched him, his interest now piqued, his thoughts going exactly where Jaxton's mind was going.

  Dagmar had chipped them. But why?

  Dr. Jefferies returned with a small handheld device that resembled a badge scanner. He flipped it on and placed it over her scar. The thing went haywire, clicking and screeching as the needle jumped on the surface.

  “The hell is that?” Sann asked as he hopped off the bed to join them.

  “Well, it's pretty old, but it was used to check people to make sure they were chipped. Back when they were first put into place there were groups that would buy counterfeit chips off the black market and implant them into themselves. They would scan normally at the doctor, so we had to come up with a device that would check for a certain frequency. This chip here is definitely giving off something else.”

  “Isn't it possible that the frequency has evolved since then?” Jaxton asked.

  “It's possible, but extremely doubtful. If they changed anything about the chips they would have to change it with everyone. That would mean reinserting them and that's a hell of a lot harder than you think in adults. Trust me. I was there for the initial wave before we started doing it at birth.”

  “What does this mean?” Jaxton leaned down and examined her scar once more.

  “I don't know.” Dr. Jefferies fiddled with the thing in his hand before bringing it to Sann's neck. It beeped and screeched just as it had with Gemi.

  Sann stepped back as his hand rushed to his neck, his fingers digging at his hairline. “Did that thing just say that I'm chipped too?”

  He nodded and met Jaxton's eyes, wordlessly asking for consent before placing it on his neck. Once again the device screeched and clicked. He switched it off and slipped it into his back pocket.

  “They must have done it while we were under,” Jaxton breathed, his own hand finding the small scar on the back of his neck.

  All at once he felt as if he had betrayed his family. He remembered pieces of them. Remembered how much they detested the chips and how they lived under the radar, away from detection of the city. His father would have whipped him good if he was alive and learned that he had gotten himself chipped. Then he would have cut it out of him himself even if it resulted in his death.

  “Why would they do that?” Sann asked, his hand still lingering over his neck.

  “That's the million-dollar question.” Dr. Jefferies said as he walked back to his desk. He pulled the device out as he sat down and connected it to the computer with a short cable. “I can upload the information from the scan and see if it compares to anything else that was on record.”

  “How do you know anything about the new age chips?” Sann asked as he laid back down, finally breaking out of his spell.”

  “Like I said, a doctor from the base was the one who woke me up and brought someone to repair my injuries. We were in regular communication until, well, until a short while before things got crazy. He fed me information and tried his best to keep me up-to-date.” He rubbed his eyes with his palms. “I should have seen the numbers were off in the reports he sent me. I just assumed that the people in charge now were decent. It never occurred to me that they would want to manipulate the population. Not with something that was meant to help.”

  “Can you remove them?” Jaxton asked.

  “Why don't you two go get some sleep? It will be a while as I analyze the data. There are barracks through the door to the left.”

  Jaxton glanced from Dr. Jefferies to Gemi's motionless frame. Even though his body was screaming at him to sleep, he knew that it would elude him if he left her.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  Sann jumped off the gurney and made his way to the door the doctor had pointed to, patting Jaxton's shoulder on the way.

  The man seemed trustworthy in the brief time they had been in his company. But he had just regained some semblance of his relationship with her and the thought of something happening now was gnawing at his stomach.

  He shot the doctor another glance as he went back to the computer screen. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight. Jaxton stooped down and lifted Gemi into his arms. If he was going to sleep she would be by his side.

  The hallway was much darker than the room they had been in, lit by a single lamp above each door that lined the corridor. He walked to the only room left ajar and pushed the door open with his foot. The interior was pitch-black. He made his way carefully through the room, navigating as best he could for never having seen the layout. Soft snoring came from his left. Sann’s ability to fall asleep was a gift.

  His shin bumped into something round and solid. Jaxton lifted his foot and felt his way to the center. Sure enough it was a cot. He placed Gemi down then bent to remove his boots. He pushed them to the foot of the bed and tossed his gear bag on top of them. Before laying down he strode back toward the entrance. When his hands bumped on something hard, he slid his fingers across the wood until he found the knob and turned the lock before walking back to the cot.

  H
e sat down next to Gemi's unconscious form and shoved his gun under the pillow before lying down and pulling her into his arms. Her heart beat steadily in her chest, the soft bumping reverberating through his arm. His fingers intertwined with her outstretched hand and drew them into her chest.

  They’d made it to the location she had indicated on the map. Not only that, they were there with the man who had started it all. A man that may be able to help them reverse all the damage that the chips had caused.

  If only she was with him to celebrate their small win.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jaxton slid his hands over his face, pushing away the remainder of sleep as he did. He hadn't slept that deep in a long time. There were no nightmares. No fuzzy memories. Just sweet darkness that allowed his body and brain to rest and escape the living nightmare that surrounded them.

  Once his senses came around fully, he noticed something was off. His hand shot out beside him and came up empty. In one breath he jumped out of the bed, his eyes scanning the dark room.

  “Gemi!”

  Sann jolted awake at his panicked tone.

  “What wrong?”

  “She's missing!” His gaze flitted across the room once more, where he saw a sliver of light spilling in from the hallway. He had locked it before falling asleep, there was no way it should be open.

  He crossed the room in a few strides and yanked open the door. Squinting against the light he stepped out into the deserted corridor. Sann was behind him before his hand reached the knob to the room they had left Dr. Jefferies in.

  His heart sank at the scene in front of him once he entered. Gemi was bound to a chair, her chin resting on the center of her chest with her eyes closed. Dr. Jefferies looked up from his computer when they came in and followed Jaxton's gaze to the puddle of blood a few feet from where Gemi sat.

  Jaxton rushed to her side. She was still breathing, but had a large bandage around her left arm from her wrist all the way to the crook of her elbow. It now mirrored the dressing on her other arm from the fight with Allon.