Listen (Muted Trilogy Book 2)

by Spoke, Nikita

  Now, Jemma read a printout Dr. Harris held, mental tongue tripping over some of the sounds as she tried to communicate in a language she wasn’t familiar with. She thought it might be Greek.

  The monitor responded, showing Jemma’s attempt, but Dr. Harris only frowned. He typed something on his clipboard keyboard, then turned his attention to his tablet.

  Jemma waited, knowing what to expect.

  After a few minutes, the door opened, allowing Naomi to enter. The female guard who stayed with Naomi smiled, first at her charge and then at Jemma, before shutting the door. Naomi, back straight and head high, made her way over to the chair next to Jemma’s and sat, waiting for Dr. Harris’s nod before placing a hand on Jemma.

  The woman had gotten more certain of herself as her bruises faded, though she still paled significantly if there was an unexpected loud noise. Between her increase in confidence and Dr. Harris’s treatment of her when they interacted, Jemma had to admit that it looked as if Josh had been telling the truth when he’d said Naomi was there by choice.

  Her guard seemed different than the others, too; Jemma certainly hadn’t seen many of the others smiling, and definitely not at Jemma herself.

  “Let’s start with the standard greeting.” Dr. Harris’s theory was that the two women would have a better shot at hearing each other if they each knew what the other was trying to say. He explained to Naomi that it was like trying to read something that was a little blurry; if you already know what’s there, it’s easier to make out the individual letters.

  “Hello, I’m Jemma.” Jemma thought the words with the part of her mind she knew would tell the monitor she was following orders, though her mind remained otherwise silent, as expected. “What’s your name?”

  A polite nod from Dr. Harris let Naomi know it was her turn.

  I’m Naomi. It’s nice to meet you. Jemma couldn’t hear the words, but she could easily recall the script they were supposed to be sticking to. The monitor remained unmoving during Naomi’s half of the conversation.

  “How are you doing today?” Jemma’s imagined mental tone was sarcastic, overly sugared. She massaged the bridge of her nose until Naomi squeezed lightly to indicate she’d finished her part. “Oh, I’m doing great,” Jemma tried in the same tone. “I’m just being bored to death and experimented on.”

  Dr. Harris tapped on her arm, and when Jemma looked at him, he shook his head, his mouth pulled downward.

  Jemma must have sent too long a message. She’d have to try a shorter sarcastic response next time, one closer to the expected, “I’m well, thanks!” She nodded and scratched around the sensors attached to her.

  “Repeat.” Dr. Harris’s electronic voice always seemed pretty close to how he must really speak.

  Jemma and Naomi went through the script again, Jemma ending this time with, “Love being trapped!”

  “Repeat.”

  Again, the same exchange, only half in Jemma’s head. “Go to hell.”

  “Repeat.”

  Most days, they went through the short conversation at least ten times. Jemma rubbed at her temple, trying to ignore the throbbing that tended to build after prolonged exposure to her captors, the frustration at repeating the same script over and over with unchanging results.

  “Repeat.”

  “You know what?” Jemma sent at him while he frowned at the monitor. “I am done. I’ve got a headache, I’ve been good for weeks, and I’m just done.”

  “Repeat.”

  Jemma tried sending a surge of frustration, to him, to Naomi, to anyone, but since her first exchange with Naomi, she hadn’t been able to get anything through. Why had it worked that first time but not any others? She’d been more upset, then, scared, feeling like she could relate to the other woman. She shook her head, rubbing it in an exaggerated way, and Dr. Harris scowled. He typed into his keyboard and waited, smiling absently at Naomi, who let go of Jemma’s arm.

  Naomi’s guard entered, and the woman made a move to stand, but her guard shook her head, walking over to Jemma instead. The guard handed Jemma two pills, clearly marked with the name of an over-the-counter headache reliever. Jemma raised her eyebrows, and the guard retrieved a bottle of water from a large pocket, handing that to Jemma as well before giving both women smiles and leaving again, without a glance at Dr. Harris.

  Jemma filed that information away for future use and swallowed the pills, then nursed the water while waiting for further instruction from Dr. Harris.

  He looked at his clock, then typed. “We will give that a chance to kick in before we continue. Naomi, if you’d like to wait outside, you may.” Naomi nodded and left, and Dr. Harris turned his attention to Jemma. “This is the third time this week you’ve had too bad of a headache to continue. Are you exaggerating, or shall we send you for an examination?”

  Jemma blinked. This was the first time he’d asked her what she thought about something, even something as obvious as what was happening in her own body. She took the crayon and paper he offered, watching his face. She saw the emotions she’d come to associate with him, when he showed any at all: annoyance, frustration, some of the same boredom she felt herself. Under that, though, was something that made Jemma’s heart rate increase for a moment.

  Why would Dr. Harris be concerned about her?

  Real headaches, she wrote, pausing to decide whether she really wanted to be poked and prodded more than she already had been. A medical professional could turn out to be an ally. They could just as easily be another scientist who didn’t care, though. Distracting, hard to focus. Not extreme pain. She hesitated again, wondering what they would do if she collapsed, whether they would bring her to an emergency room or try to deal with it in-house. A false alarm would only work once. She would try to find out what happened in emergencies before she tried to create one herself.

  Her pause stretched out too long, and Dr. Harris peered at the paper before nodding. “You may relax until the medication takes effect.” He set down his clipboard, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

  Relax. Right. She could do that.

  Instead, she studied the lab again, the pain in her head lessening already now that nobody was making demands of her.

  Outside the window stood a guard, his back facing her. Inside the room was the chair she sat in, and a chair for each Naomi and either Dr. Harris or Josh. There was a table that the employees used for their equipment, under which Jemma knew there were granola bars. There was the monitor that was still attached to Jemma, and there was a tray of medical equipment used when they wanted a sample of Jemma’s blood.

  This seemed to be about twice a week, in fairly small amounts. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t need much blood to do it. She didn’t care for the additional invasion of the extraction, but it did, at least, change things up a bit.

  It also reminded her of where all this had started. Mysteries aren’t supposed to start in blood banks. Nor are kidnappings or elevated telepathic abilities.

  The question still remained as to whether they’d found out that Jack and Jemma were likely to be more telepathic or whether they’d created that ability in the first place. Judging by their interest in her, Jemma’s best guess was the former; if they could get abilities out of anyone, it would make more sense to use one or more of their volunteers. It would be easier, certainly, if they didn’t have to kidnap people, pay guards to keep them contained, find ways to convince the subjects to try to use their abilities.

  Then again, it wasn’t as if she’d really even been able to use her abilities since coming to this facility. She’d have read in the newspaper if people stopped being able to Talk, so they had to have some sort of suppression going on.

  It had baffled her since she’d figured that out, though, why they would choose to suppress abilities they were trying to study. In addition to wondering why they were doing it, she often found herself wondering how they were limiting their telepathy.

  The sound of the door opening brought Jemma ba
ck to the present, and she saw Naomi reentering, Dr. Harris already prepared with his clipboard and tablet. After Naomi sat, he nodded, and the pointless, one-sided, silent conversation began once more.

  It couldn’t be any later than two in the afternoon, and Jemma was already waiting for the day to end.

  ***

  What to Watch

  Movies coming out this week include a science fiction feature, a superhero film, and a romance.

  There’s nothing unusual about this list, of course, but today marks the first time that every new release is without natural voice.

  The bigger budget movies were, of course, mostly recorded before the Event, but each chose to eliminate voice in order to better suit the current world. These movies have used silence, captioning, emulating old-fashioned silent movies, but new films currently under production promise to deliver replication of Talking, as well as more realistic depictions of current methods of communication.

  By stepping up and producing films that reflect us, these movie makers are boldly renouncing replacement voices, saying that it’s okay to be who we are. They’re also saying, quite clearly, that they don’t think this is just a passing phase, that we won’t regain our voices in the foreseeable future.They have decided it’s easier to imagine a continued future without voice than it is to imagine a near future with our voices returned.

  What do you think? Should movies use artificial voices as our newscasts do? Or should they continue this trend and become mute, as we are?

  — Katie Brink, Staff Writer

  She ate her breakfast while making her way through the newspaper. She paused, spoon halfway to her mouth, as she looked at the date.

  It was a Friday, her second spent trapped in this place. She should be having dinner with her family that night, not sitting alone in a locked room, fighting an endless headache and waiting for the next round of repetitive testing.

  She missed them, wondered how they were holding up and whether they had tried to find her. How many more Fridays would she have to spend in here, stuck in this cell, before she could join them again?

  Jemma continued eating through her lack of appetite. She couldn’t keep her mind sharp through the monotony if she didn’t at least make her best attempt at ingesting enough food.

  She put down the paper, no longer able to focus, and choked down the rest of her breakfast, emptying the bowl just before that day’s guard opened the door to allow her the morning’s bathroom break.

  SIX

  Quality

  Josh seemed particularly exuberant that morning, grinning at Jemma as he drew her blood.

  “I have a good feeling about today,” he typed after he finished handling the medical supplies. He winked at her.

  Jemma stared. She’d found that was usually the fastest way to dim his misplaced enthusiasm. Today, he only chuckled silently, his shoulders moving up and down. “Don’t look at me like that. Here, I managed to get you something.” He handed her the old cell phone she’d used to speak on her first day, or at least, a phone that looked just like it. “You get to keep it this time, as long as you behave.” His grin was lopsided, and his green eyes sparkled.

  She had been a good dog again.

  Jemma took the phone from him, quickly skimming through the menu and verifying she still had access only to the typing program.

  “You’ll be able to charge it in here during lunches.” Josh was practically bouncing as he typed. “I may even be able to get a game unlocked for you later.” He watched her, clearly waiting for a response.

  “Thanks,” typed Jemma, blinking at the female voice. Though the quality wasn’t any better than the voices the scientists used, she hadn’t heard even a synthesized female voice in weeks.

  “Okay,” typed Josh, “today, you’re going to try to send me a message telepathically, then type to let me know what you tried to say. It’s sort of the reverse of how you do it with Dr. Harris, I know, but we’re trying something a little different.”

  Jemma nodded and waited for him to hold her arm, his hands stereotypically cold. She did as he’d asked and attempted to send a message, following it up with typing when it didn’t work. “Couldn’t you test telepathy more easily if you weren’t blocking it?” She decided to try to use his good mood for her potential gain.

  His mouth pulled down to one side. “Yes. It’s safer this way, though.” Any lingering doubt that they weren’t doing something to actively hinder her abilities vanished.

  “Safer for us or for you?” The monitor registered her attempt before her phone spoke, and Josh looked between the machine and Jemma before responding.

  “Both, actually. Let’s move to a safer topic, please, since I can’t say more.” He paused, grinning and pointing toward the activity on the monitor. “But see what we can do when we cooperate?”

  Jemma nodded, resisting the impulse to roll her eyes, then sought something to say that wasn’t on the topic she wanted to explore further.

  “What prompted the cell phone? It does make things easier,” she tried finally.

  Josh’s leg jiggled. “We thought it might help. New subject, please. What’s your favorite color?”

  This time, Jemma did roll her eyes, but Josh grinned at the expression. Jemma had to think for a moment in order to answer. “Brown,” she typed, ignoring the brief mental image of Jack’s brown eyes and hair, focusing instead on the color she’d often associated with books.

  “I like orange,” Josh supplied without prompting. “If you could turn into any animal, which would you pick?”

  The questions continued back and forth for nearly an hour, Josh asking things Jemma tended to associate with children or teens, or maybe people on a first date. Some answers were easy, some she hid from him, and some she made up because she honestly hadn’t thought about them. At least during the questions, he wasn’t treating her like a pet. Not quite.

  “That was a good deal more entertaining than your reciting memorized sentences,” he typed when they’d finished. Josh turned and rummaged in his little supply box. He handed her a granola bar, which was chocolate today, then turned back to his keypad. “There’s one more surprise for you, so our session will be a bit short. Eat up, and we’ll finish soon.”

  “What is it?” typed Jemma.

  He shook his head, mimed zipping his lips shut, and started typing on his tablet. Jemma chewed slowly, working through the possibilities for a surprise. The phone wasn’t a bad one, she had to admit. She knew what she hoped for, but release for herself and Jack seemed unlikely.

  When the door opened, Josh looked up, a pleased expression on his face, and he gestured for Jemma to follow the guard who waited outside.

  ***

  Jemma was led first to the bathroom. It wasn’t unusual for her to be allowed a visit before lunch, but it was still fairly early in the day. She walked in and shut the door behind her before she noticed the pile of clothes on the back of the toilet.

  They were hers, not the scrubs she’d been wearing for weeks now, but the clothes she’d come in with: comfortable jeans, a button-up blouse, and sensible shoes, a pair of white sneakers that served her well at work. They’d all been cleaned.

  She changed into the clothes slowly. First they gave her a phone to make communication easier, and now they were giving her back her clothes. It seemed good, it really did, but it didn’t seem like release, and Jemma didn’t feel particularly trusting when it came to the people who held her captive for study.

  She was piecing information together while she was here, but slowly, too slowly. The sudden change in her comforts, that was a piece that just didn’t quite fit.

  Jemma ran her hands over her blouse, smoothing it into place. She hitched her jeans a bit higher from where they’d fallen. The fabric felt harsh compared to the scrubs that she could forget she was even wearing. She slipped the cell phone into her pocket and looked in the mirror. Her face was thin, not quite to the point of looking unhealthy, but still thinner than Jemma’s internal ima
ge of herself. The skin under her hazel eyes was darker than usual, the way it looked when she’d stayed up too late reading. Her hair had gotten a little longer, not enough that she’d have noticed if she took the time to look each day. She looked worn out.

  When she left the bathroom, the guard was still waiting for her, and he gestured down the hall, farther from her room. She hadn’t been this direction, not this far, and alarm bells went off again in her mind. There were numerous doors this way, but Jemma didn’t see any windows, anything to make the hallway stand out as anything more specific than the continuation of the same corridor. The guard stopped at the first door that had a label: Cafeteria.

  He pulled a keyboard from the pocket next to his gun, using the device to type something Jemma wasn’t able to hear. He held his hand up to his ear as if holding in an earpiece, then nodded and opened the door to let her in.

  The cafeteria was relatively small, with four tables that looked like they belonged in a school lunchroom. Instead of a manned counter for food, there were a few vending machines and a refrigerated display case with sandwiches.

  Jemma took all this in only absently, though, as she focused on the man who was gesturing at another guard, his back to her. He turned, stilling when he saw her.

  Jack.

  She wasn’t sure who moved first, didn’t remember the distance between them closing. She leaned into his embrace, Jack’s arms wrapping around her tightly, his heart thumping against her chest. She could feel one of the guards trying to get her attention, tapping on her shoulder, but she paid him no mind, and Jack made no move to pull away.

  “I’ve missed you,” she sent, holding her breath at her easy admission and at the fact that she’d actually been able to Talk, the echo surprisingly reassuring.

  “Same.” His mental tone was firm, hints of relief, affection, and worry laced through it. To hear another real, human voice was wonderful. For it to be Jack’s, specifically—