“It wasn't fun,” was all he could think to say.
“Well, it will be all worth it if this works and we can right everything that Dagmar has wronged. I should have never trusted that man.”
“You knew him?”
“He was on my team. Always a very spiteful human being.” Dr. Jefferies sighed and took a seat on a stool next to the bed. “But, he was my top performer. He was so smart, picked up everything quickly. Nonetheless, he seemed off. But there was nothing concrete for me to dismiss him from the program. That was, until the projects I ran started going south. Not in a way that was obvious, just trivial things that would put us behind schedule.”
Dr. Jefferies stared off into the distance as if he was reliving his past all over again. His eyes looked sad when they flickered back to him.
“One night I returned to the lab. We had an early deadline and I wanted to make sure everything was ready. It was for the cryogenic injection I mentioned earlier. I found that son of a bitch in my office tampering with the data. I fired him on the spot, but I was furious and not thinking straight. I forgot to deactivate his badge. Early the following morning there was an explosion in one of our machines. And the rest I already told you.” He bit at his nail and dropped his gaze to the bed.
“When I woke up, Dagmar was in charge of the military program that oversaw the chips and everything seemed to be fine. Everyone had long since thought I was dead so I rolled with it. I should have known better.”
“What happened to the person who put you under? They knew you were alive, so why didn't they tell someone or come get you?”
“I asked myself that very question. Turns out she died in a car crash while leaving the base. Not three days after Dagmar was appointed head of the program.”
Jaxton stared at the doctor as the realization sank in that Dagmar had been running things for much longer than any of them could have imagined. They were nothing but pawns in his game. A game he was prepared to do anything to preserve. Now that his reign ended because of them he would come after them with all he had. There was no way he didn't have a plan B.
A scream tore through the room making both Dr. Jefferies and Jaxton jump. He was off the bed and ripping the IV needle out of his arm before the doctor had a second to realize what was happening and try to protest. Jaxton’s bare feet slapped on the cold floor as he ran toward the barracks. His muscles were rigid and his head swam, but he didn't care. He knew who was screaming.
“No. No. No!” she cried from the darkness. “Not again! Get off of me!”
Jaxton stepped inside the doorway and watched as Gemi thrashed on the bed with Sann fighting to hold her down. He had a needle gripped in his hand and was attempting to insert it into her arm.
He walked up behind him and seized him by the shirt. If Sann hadn't been so surprised, there was no way he would have dismounted him in the state he was in. But he had caught him off guard and off balance. He pulled and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“What the fuck, man?”
He ignored him and turned his attention back to her. She had ropes knotted around her wrists and ankles that bound her to the bed by the rails underneath the mattress. Her eyes were wild. Her chest was rising and falling at a rate that couldn't possibly allow adequate oxygen into her lungs.
Jaxton sank down on the cot beside her and cupped her cheeks in his hands. It took a second, but her gaze drifted from Sann to him. Even in the dim light, he could see the tears glistening in her eyes. Air escaped his lips in a rush. It was there, recognition if not partially obscured by terror was written all over her face.
“Thank God.” He pressed his lips to her damp forehead. “Give me your knife,” Jaxton growled, turning to face Sann who now had a concerned-looking Dr. Jefferies next to him.
They exchanged a glance and when the doctor nodded his head, Sann pulled the knife from his belt and thrust the handle into Jaxton's outstretched hand.
“What is happening?” Gemi snapped as Jaxton slid the blade under the restraints on her wrists.
“You don't remember?” Jaxton questioned as he moved to her ankles.
“I remember the last time Sann had me bound like this,” she retorted, dragging her knees to her chest and folding her arms around them.
“Whoa.” Sann looked between the two of them. “I was just in here making sure you didn't go all psychotic again. Which you were acting like the second you woke up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Wait, you seriously don't remember anything?” Jaxton laid a hand on hers but she jerked away.
“I remember walking through the forest then waking up here with him.” She shot him a dirty look then turned on Jaxton. “I don't exactly like being tied up, all things considered.”
“It makes sense that she doesn't remember,” Dr. Jefferies interjected. “Her brain was being bombarded with whatever is programed in the—”
“Who is this? And for that matter, where the hell are we?” she shouted and waved her arms in a circle.
“We're at the base you marked on the map.”
“Yeah, and this is Dr. Jefferies,” Sann said, sounding like an excited child.
“You say that as if I'm supposed to know who he is,” she retorted.
“You should. He's the guy who started it all.”
Gemi pressed her fingertips into her brow bone, then slid them to her temples. “Are you saying that this is Dr. Jefferies, the Dr. Jefferies?”
Sann and Jaxton both nodded their heads.
“He's been helping us find a way to fix the chips,” Jaxton said.
“Simple. Turn on the damn mainframe.”
“It's a bit more complex than that,” Dr. Jefferies said, looking at her then to Jaxton. “Why don't you two take a minute? It's pretty late in the evening. Come get us when you're ready and we can go to the kitchen and cook dinner.”
Dr. Jefferies elbowed Sann, and they both moved toward the exit. They left it cracked behind them, allowing enough light to see her face. When he heard the other door shut, he shifted toward her.
“I'm so glad you're okay.” He reached out for her again, but she stiffened at the contact so he set his hand back into his lap.
All the progress they had made before he lost her had been erased. Now that he remembered their life clearly, it stung even more.
“Do you want to explain what the hell happened?”
“We were on our way here when you completely lost it. You came at us with a knife. Got Sann good too before we were able to catch you. I expected you would remember at least some of it considering between the babbling you warned us to get away from you.”
She gaped at him. “I—I don't…did I hurt you?”
He grinned at her and shook his head.
She rested her chin on her knees and stared at the bed. “How did you bring me back?”
“You can thank Dr. Jefferies for that. He did some scientific stuff I don't understand with your chip and—”
“I'm sorry.” She straightened. “Did you say my chip? That was removed when I came to base.”
“Yeah, about that…” Jaxton squared his shoulders to ready himself for the anger he was about to ignite. “Dagmar put them back in during the test. It's how he could, well…manipulate us. What we did in those tests was never coming from us. It was information implanted into our brains.”
Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something and then quickly closed. She was taking it better than he thought she would.
“But Dr. Jefferies has a plan to override the chips. None of this was ever about how people would react without the chips. It was about chaos. Dagmar can do whatever he wishes to people as long as those chips are in them and functioning. Including block out memories.”
Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and he nodded. A roaring laughter escaped her so suddenly that Jaxton tensed waiting for her to lose it again. But instead she hunched over and her laughter turned to tears.
“How did he do all this without me
noticing?” she whispered between gasps.
“Oh, he had this cookin' long before you and I ever came along. But Jefferies really thinks we can fix it. Fix everything.”
She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and nuzzling her nose into the skin below his jaw.
“Hey, it's okay,” he murmured in her ear, letting his hand run down the length of her hair.
“I was so scared when I woke up like that, thinking somehow we were back in it. As if we never escaped it at all. There is no way I could survive that again.”
“You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. You've done so many amazing things.”
“I got us caught and tested on. And once I had control of everything I allowed it to escalate until the hundreds of people I was supposed to look out for died.”
“That ball was already rolling. There was nothing any of us could have done. We were working off of information that said the chips were causing people to snap, not that one person was forcing them to. Dagmar never trusted us anyways. Why do you think he kept us so close?”
After a few minutes, and a series of snot-filled sniffles, her breathing slowed and the tears dried on his neck, but she lingered in his embrace. He pulled her in closer until there was no space between them, relishing the gentle curve of her side under his palm and the way her soft skin pressed against his. There was a time before everything went down that he thought there was no way he could love her more. But now he saw her in a new light.
All the images of her lashing out, the times she did in fact kill him were pushed away. He knew that was Dagmar. But offering herself up to a murderer. Taking a bullet for someone. That was her. The real Gemi. She would do anything for the people she loved. He was lucky enough to be at the top of her list even if she didn't remember that.
“I hate that you know more than me. It’s like I'm back in the test and totally oblivious. I despise that feeling.”
Jaxton chuckled and leaned back so he could see her face. “Well, be prepared to hate me a lot more.”
She tilted her head as she regarded him.
“In order to download the data from the chip, Dr. Jefferies needed it out of someone's head. I offered mine and now that it's gone I remember everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “What was my favorite color?”
“Green.”
“Favorite book?”
“You never could choose one, said you loved them all.”
“You could be making this all up and I wouldn’t know.”
“I could,” he laughed, “but I'm not.”
“Why didn't he take it out of all of us?”
“Because without the chip everything comes crashing back in. It's information overload to the millionth degree.”
“I know what that's like. I never told you this, but when we first woke up, right after they let me out of isolation, I had an episode where all the hundred lives came rushing in. It was this painful, suffocating feeling. I bet he did that on purpose to try to further block out my memories.”
“He never knew who he was messing with.” Jaxton's fingers found hers and interlaced with them.
She stared down at their hands, her eyebrows pulling together. With her free hand she traced the metal band on her left ring finger.
“I needed something to anchor me here.” He watched her face for a reaction, but her features remained impassive.
“Hey,” Sann's voice called from behind them. “I know Dr. Jefferies said whenever you're ready, but I'm starving. Do you think we can eat and fill Gemi in on everything there?”
Gemi extracted her hand from his and smiled. “Of course.”
Throughout dinner Gemi hardly spoke. Dr. Jefferies explained everything from how they had barged in on him, to them discovering that Dagmar was the one controlling the population through the chips. He told her about how he knew Dagmar when he was younger and how he had been preserved and brought back to life only to see the world falling apart because of a system he had created.
Once or twice, Jaxton caught her cringing. Dr. Jefferies probably revealed a little too much detail about the state he was in after the chip was removed. Even he didn't like hearing about it.
After several hours of talking Dr. Jefferies insisted they go to sleep. They would discuss a plan to take Dagmar down in the morning and he wanted everyone fresh faced. Sann declined the offer and since he was the only one who hadn't been through an ordeal, Dr. Jefferies relented.
Jaxton walked with her back to the barracks in silence and even as they undressed for bed she didn't say a word. He was beginning to worry that all the information she had been bombarded with was finally setting in and taking its toll.
Jaxton climbed onto the mattress and collapsed into the center. Now that he was laying down, he had to admit how exhausted he was. The body aches were relenting, but his head still felt as if it was full of air, threatening to burst free. He wondered just how much damage had been done to his brain over the course of the past few months. He'd had a concussion once from standing too close to a bomb they were testing. It had sent him flying and he only vaguely remembered hitting the ground. That was nothing compared to what he endured in the past seventy-two hours.
He slung his arm over his eyes and tried to focus on sleep. They most likely wouldn't be in a bed again for a while, if at all, depending on what their plan was and how it played out.
The mattress shifted beside him and he felt a body press up against his. Jaxton lifted his arm and turned to see Gemi staring at him. She was so close, and the room was so dark he could only make out her eyes and the tip of her nose.
His arm snaked around her and he pulled her into him. She buried her face into his neck and let out a soft sigh.
“Tell me something good,” she whispered. “All I can remember is the bad stuff.”
“Hmm…well, for Sann's twenty-first birthday we lifted one of the cargo vans from the base and drove to a nearby town. After drinking too much you wandered into a library and had the great idea to pretend you had hearing loss due to, and I quote, military things. You spent the following hour asking the librarian for every medical book they had, by name, by screaming the title and then apologizing, literally, at the top of your lungs. Everyone in there looked like they might die of fright every time you spoke.”
She laughed into his neck. “Another.”
“Okay…on one outing we found some clothing dye and brought it back with us. You stole all of Sann's clothes when he was asleep and dyed them neon green, coincidentally your favorite color. It was the day before he was set to train the new recruits. I'd never seen him so mad. He retaliated by gluing you to your chair for about five hours and refused to tell me where he hid you. You eventually got out by cutting yourself free from your pants and had to walk back to your room like that.”
“I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out on the streets.”
“It wasn't for lack of trying, trust me. The three of us together were a force to be reckoned with.”
“I have a few spotty memories with the three of us. The day we got married. When I became head of the chip maintenance. Our wedding, oh, and my eighteenth birthday.”
“See, you have some good memories in there.”
“Not enough to drown out the bad ones.”
“I would think the whole marrying me thing would be enough, but I guess not.”
Gemi pushed on his chest and snorted. “You seem different.”
His hands found the skin of her lower back and traced small circles with his thumb. The truth was they were all different. They had walked through hell and made it out on the other side. He just had the pleasure of walking through it twice and wasn't about to take any of his waking time for granted anymore.
“I hope different in a good way,” he breathed against her hair.
“Mmm-hmm.”
Her breathing evened ou
t and in a matter of minutes he could tell she was out. He planted a kiss on the top of her head and closed his eyes. They would have one hell of a fight on their hands. Even if they managed to correct the chips, they would still have the anti-chippers to deal with. There would be no stopping them from doing whatever they wanted. They might be even more lethal if they were rallied behind Dagmar. And at this point, there was no doubt in his mind that they were.
At least they would have the benefit of surprise. Dagmar had no idea they were on to him yet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jaxton woke to the sound of Sann snoring like a chain saw. He rolled over expecting Gemi to still be next to him, but her side of the bed was empty and cold. She was never one to sleep in.
He sat up slowly, bracing for the pounding in his head, but instead of being unbearable it had subsided to an annoying but tolerable pain. He pulled on his shirt and slipped into his boots. Sann continued sleeping even though he made no attempt to be quiet. On his way out of the room he threw a pillow at his friend's face.
“Let's go. Saving the world awaits.”
Sann moaned behind him as he closed the door and opened the next one. Just as he expected, Gemi was sitting at the desk with Dr. Jefferies, deep in conversation.
“Well, he has to know we're here,” she said.
“There wasn't that many of them when you arrived. There is a good chance they were just wanderers.”
“That far away from civilization and conveniently located by the only other building with a mainframe? They just couldn't get inside to destroy everything so they cased the area instead.”
“Do you think they're still outside?”
“I would assume so. With three of the people on his shit list inside, you had better believe he's got this place surrounded by now.”
“Not unless he thinks you took us out from the inside. We've been in here almost a week.”
“He doesn't seem like the type to take a chance.”
“Morning,” Jaxton called from the doorway.
Both of them pulled out of their huddle and looked up at him. Gemi grinned when she saw him before quickly shifting her attention back to the computer.
Paroxysm (Book 2): Paroxysm Aftermath Page 14