by Martha Adele
The stomach cramp tightens, and I feel a sudden emergency come on. “Hey,” I call out to one of the women I see walking out of a room, “hey, can you help me?”
She looks at my hunched-over stance and rushes over. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” She places her hand on my back as I look down and see blood.
The cramp spreads to my lower back below where her hand rests and causes an immense amount of pain. I look to the woman and tell her, “I need to get to the hospital.”
Nodding to me, the woman immediately takes me to the medical center. The same nurse who tried to check me a week ago looks me over once when I enter and rushes me onto a bed. She gets me all set up, into a gown, on a monitor, and back to where I was when I passed out.
Within minutes of me getting situated, Janice shows up with a look on her face of true worry. And somehow, that look relaxes me. She actually cares.
“Mavis! What happened? A nurse called me as soon as you walked in, and I got here as fast as I could.”
I shrug it off. “I’m fine. It was just a stomach cramp.”
“A stomach cramp? You wouldn’t have come in if it was just a stomach cramp.”
I give her a little smile. “Janice, I’m fine.”
I am fine.
Over the next hour or so, we find out how completely fine I am.
They run the tests.
They do the work.
My nurse sits down with me after it is all said and done, and she rests her hand on my bed. “Mavis, the baby is gone.”
At first, I don’t process her statement. “What?”
“What?” Janice asks with me, “What happened?”
I look to Janice’s face and find she is much more hurt than I am. Why am I not reacting the same way?
“Sadly, this sort of thing isn’t unusual. Most miscarriages happen before week thirteen of pregnancies.” My nurse wraps both her hands over her clipboard. “I’m sorry, Mavis.”
The three of us sit here quietly. I don’t know what to say.
I didn’t want the baby, and now I don’t have to deal with it. Why am I upset?
Was it the hit I took in the stomach that did it?
Did I kill the baby while I was training?
I brush off all the pained thoughts and turn to Janice. My immediate reaction is telling her, “I’m not pregnant anymore.”
Janice pauses, looking to me with a confused expression. “Mavis,” she takes a moment to realize what I am saying, “you need to take your time before you—”
“You told me that when I wasn’t pregnant anymore, we can talk about this. Well, guess what, I don’t have to wait. I didn’t have the baby, so I don’t have to take care of it. I didn’t grow to the full size I could have, so I am still in shape. I can do this.”
“Mavis—” She tries to take my hand, but I grab hers first.
“Let me do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Logan
I watch as Derek holds his mother’s hand in his. One of the guards lets Derek free to go and be with his mom a few hours ago, and Derek hasn’t moved since.
He lays his head on her knees as he sits beside her and weeps. His mother looks so frail and so empty. She hasn’t moved. She just stares with her jaw hanging.
She stares into the mirror, seemingly at me.
I haven’t moved either. My skin burns as air-conditioning blows on it, but this pain hurts nowhere near as much as watching Derek with his mom.
The door beside me unlocks, and Tony comes in with a smug smile on his face. “Good morning, Logan.”
I stare at him, not saying anything.
“Aw, come on, why so cold? I thought you and I have become close enough to greet each other with the bare minimum.”
I continue to wheeze in his direction as he waits for an answer.
“No? Okay then.” He presses a few of the buttons on the wall and looks back to me. “Logan, I have come to a conclusion.”
A buzzer rings in the Pages’ room. A tray of food slides through a small opening in one of the doors, and everyone seems to stare at it. Derek slowly rises to his feet as we watch in silence. He picks up the tray and looks it over for no more than a split second before chucking it at the window. The splatter of the food covers my view of Ms. Page but not Derek. He stands there for a moment more and boils.
“Ignoring that tantrum”—Tony looks back to me—“my conclusion is that you won’t tell me anything, even though I know you know something.”
I look to him and give a gravelly, sarcastic chuckle. “You think?” But all that comes out is some sort of mumble.
Tony smiles. “So you will become a soldier.”
“What?” I ask him.
“For Frieden but, more specifically, for me.”
I cough to the side of my chair. “I would never, and you know this.”
He nods. “Yes, yes, I know. I expect some resistance. But you should know, Logan, I have had special bionic leg structures made for you. They will restore your ability to walk around and do everything just as you used to.”
“What?”
“Along with a suit that will”—Tony leans over to me and places his hand on my shoulder with a tight grip, burning my skin—“help ease your sensitivity.”
I shake him off and shout at him, “I’m not helping you with anything! Just go ahead and kill me!”
Tony rolls his eyes and pulls a vial out of his pocket. He sticks it into my arm and growls back at me, “Just wait.”
Mavis
The sound of the scissors slowly cutting across my hair somehow makes me nervous. The stylist cuts it much shorter than I am used to it being. By the time she finishes it, the longest part of my hair is right above my shoulders.
“My name is June Dawson. I was a Bloot. My parents, Gary and Sharron, were both killed in the revolt.”
The stylist takes a can of hair dye and begins spraying. She starts with the hair at the front of my head and makes her way back. A strand of my new brown hair falls in front of my face and shocks me.
“My name is June Dawson. I was a Bloot. I had no siblings.”
The woman takes my wrist and places a piece of plastic over my old code as a guide to change it. She turns on the tattoo gun and begins her work as Janice continues to prep me.
“How old are you?” Janice asks me. “What were you originally assigned to do in Bestellen?”
“My name is June Dawson. I was a Bloot. I am twenty-three years old. I was trained to be a farmer.”
We go over a million more questions until I can tell you all about my life before Frieden. When the stylist finishes my code, she scans my face into the system and makes my new ID. Janice then walks me out to the bunker’s exit.
“Are you ready, June? Your guide should be right outside waiting.”
I nod. “I’m ready. I am all set.”
Janice nods back to me and unlocks the exit. “Are you sure? I mean, it has only been a few days since—”
I look up the ladder to see a head peek in. His brown and fluffy hair dangles down toward me as his smile grows.
“Ready?” the random man asks me. “Our hike awaits.”
I look back to Janice and find myself in a hug, a warm hug that I feel I will miss when I am gone. “Thank you, Janice.”
She gives me another squeeze. “I will see you soon, June. Be safe.”
I give her one last smile and climb up the ladder.
Logan
The machine they have me attached to injects another dose of whatever it is they are giving me. For days now, they have been feeding me nothing but nutrients through tubes and reinforcing the same logic and the same commands to me over and over.
I can tell the difference between what they tell me and what is right, but I can’t get them to stop. The men beat me, shouting that I am
guilty of treason against my country for even thinking about the rebels.
Another hand slaps me across my face. My head dangles as I try to move from the bondages but can’t. The stinging and burning pain on my skin has become almost nonexistent with the mixture of whatever drugs they are feeding me, along with the fact that I am too distracted by the beatings.
“You’re worthless. The only time you ever actually did something good in your life was when you joined the Taai.”
“It is your fault that you were put into the gas chamber. You shouldn’t have associated with the rebels.”
“The only way you will ever do anything worthwhile is if you listen to your commands.”
Their voices all become blurred together as they attempt to condition me to believe them, but their commands are slowly shifting toward more reasonable wishes.
As I listen to their commands changing, I form a plan.
Another dose is administered through the tubes, and I let my head fall back against the chair and nod.
One of the two men continues to shout at me, “You will be one of the best soldiers in history and get your legs back if you listen to us. You will no longer be a worthless rat to the rebels but a man who will save lives if you listen to us.”
I nod again.
My playing along as if they are actually getting to me is the only way for them to stop torturing innocent people. If I don’t comply, they may go and get more citizens like the Pages.
Hours go on, and the two men have become much kinder and much quieter.
They press a button and have the machine administer one last thing to me before pulling me out of the bondages and sitting me in a wheelchair. Almost immediately, when we cross the threshold of the room, I fall into a deep sleep. A dreamless deep sleep that seems to last no more than three seconds. The moment I close my eyes, I can hear my surroundings shift into something much quieter. When I open my eyes to check and see where I am, I find myself back in my hospital room in a different set of clothes, with another IV in me. I look around the room to see if anyone is in here with me and find a woman sitting in the corner.
“Hello, Logan.” She rises from her chair and comes over to my bed. She looks me over and allows a smile to come across her face. “How are you feeling?”
I take a few deep breaths, trying to figure out how to answer. Why would they be so nice after torturing me for days?
“My name is Elloise. I am here to help you get into the skeleton.”
I sit up quickly, slightly scaring the woman. She steps back and looks over to the corner of the room. My eyes follow hers to a bunch of wires and small circular pads in a pile.
“That is the machine that is going to help you walk.” Our eyes meet for a moment before she heads over and grabs the pile. When she picks it up, it looks a lot more like strings with little stickers on the ends than anything else. “I am sorry about my coworkers. I know they can be harsh, but we really need you to work with us.”
What? She is in on it?
“You are one of the best soldiers we’ve seen, Logan, and we really need your help.” She pulls my blanket off my legs and places her hands on my ankles. “May I?”
I stare at her hands and give a small shrug. I don’t know exactly what she is doing, but I have a feeling I can trust her.
“We would never ask you to do anything that you wouldn’t be okay with. You would only be doing the security-risk jobs, like making sure innocent people will be okay.”
Elloise runs her hands up my legs, seemingly feeling for pressure points. I watch her, only listening to the sound of my horrid wheezing, and think about what to say.
“Would you be okay with doing the jobs like that?”
I nod to her again, and she sets the wires on the bed.
“Logan, I need to take your pants off in order to get these on you, okay?” Elloise pauses and waits for me to say something, but I’m not sure what to say.
I sit here in silence and watch her nod to me and place her hands on the bottom of my pants. She slowly tugs on them and gets them to slide off much easier than I thought they were going to. As I sit here in my underwear, feeling awkward and exposed, I watch her bring the wires up to my legs.
She peels off a clear plastic covering from the bottom of the cold and sticky pads just before sticking each pad to my leg. Elloise goes through all the pieces and connects the skeleton to me as I think about the job offer. If I am assigned missions to make sure innocent people live, then I am not only saving them but also helping save other innocents that they may torture if I refuse.
I can do that.
I want to do that.
Elloise connects each of the little circles to random points on my legs. She rubs the sticky pads into my skin and massages them until the ends of the pads seem to disappear. My hand glides over the first pad she did, not feeling any difference between it and my skin. The only thing that seems any different are the wires sticking out of my legs.
“What did you do?” I ask her. “How did you do that?”
She gives me a little smile and continues to massage the other pads into my legs. “I am activating the sensors in the pads so that they dissolve into your skin, allowing the wires to intertwine with your—” Elloise turns her head to me and chuckles, “I am making it so that the wires can communicate with your legs.” When she finishes massaging one of the pads on the side of my knee, she looks to the IV in my arm. “It’s a good thing they have you medicated right now, or this process would have hurt.”
After minutes of watching her massage the pads into my legs, something catches my eye. I feel my heart begin to race as one of the first wires connected to me slowly sinks and becomes attached to my skin as well. The other wires follow the first wire’s lead and connect themselves to my skin. The last few pads she has to do are on the lower and upper parts of my hips, along with the inside part of my thigh.
She gives me a look to make sure I know she is about to begin and then slowly places the pads where they need to be. Neither of us makes any eye contact as she does her job. We are both much happier when that part is over. By the time Elloise finishes, I have two black lines running down each of my legs on both sides, seemingly outlining the joints.
“Here.” She comes over to my torso and places her hand on my back. After leaning me forward, she pulls my shirt up and places one of the sticky pads on the base of my spine, right where Eric told me my original injury that caused the paralysis was.
The moment she finishes rubbing the pad into my pack, I look down to my legs to feel the pads tingling. I watch them as they seem to vibrate forcibly, causing an odd and slightly uncomfortable cramp to form. My toes begin to curl, and my calves begin to flex as I slowly regain control of the muscles.
“Logan.” Elloise heads back over to her chair and pulls a vial out of her bag. “If you feel any sort of cramp coming on at all, whether it be in your leg, your foot, or even your back, you tell me as soon as it happens, okay? The first few hours are going to be the worst. If you let the cramp get out of hand, there is no telling how long it will be before you get it back under control.”
As she finishes her statement, I feel a small pain in the bottom of my foot. I can’t tell at first what it is; but a moment later, the cramp begins.
I point to my foot and look to her. “There’s one now.”
She immediately lunges toward me and sticks me in the calf of my left leg, the one she happened to be closest to. I watch as my foot contorts and takes on a mind of its own, and the cramp dies out just as quickly as it came up.
“Are you okay?”
I look to Elloise with my face somewhat scrunched as I try to ignore the pain in my foot. I nod to her and look around the room to see where the air vent is located. It seems to have just kicked on and is greatly aggravating my skin.
Each breeze that blows shoots a burning pain over a
ll the skin exposed while the rest of my skin is forced to deal with the fabric of my clothes rubbing against it.
Elloise tries to move in front of my gaze. “What’s wrong?”
I force my face out of its contorted expression and try to bend my knees. “Nothing.”
She looks to my legs, and a smile grows on her face. “Great job!” She shifts to the side of the bed and places her hands on my ankles once again. This time, she takes them and slides them off the side of the bed. “Are you ready to try to stand?” Elloise heads to the corner of the room and pulls over a walker. She sets it in front of me and waits for my answer.
I look down to my feet with the shriveled skin and wiggle my toes. After a moment of staring at my legs, I slide off the bed, ignoring Elloise’s pleas to wait, and immediately fall under the weight of my upper body. I catch myself somewhat on the walker but end up having Elloise support me almost fully.
“Why didn’t you wait?” She holds the walker in place as I push myself up completely with my arms.
Ignoring her once again, I slowly allow myself to put pressure on my legs and find that I can stand. The weakness of my muscles shocks me. I know I haven’t used them in a long time, but this is almost unbearable. I can barely hold myself up.
But I don’t care.
I am standing.
Elloise slowly releases the walker and takes a step back. “Great job, Logan! Now, before you start—”
I slide my right foot forward an inch or two, still completely dependent on the walker, and find that I have taken my first step. After that, I continue to shuffle forward slowly but surely and not listening to Elloise one bit.
After I almost fall on my face, she rushes over and gets in front of the walker. “Hey, Logan, you need to listen to me, or this isn’t going to be a fun experience.”
I stare at her for a moment, still wheezing, and wait for her to move. Why would she care if I fall on my face? Why would they send me a therapist that actually seems to want to help me?
I tighten my grip on the walker. Before I can try to get by her, she stares me down, much like my mother used to, and somehow puts me back in my place. The next few hours go by, and I manage to walk like I used to and even learn to run again. After getting back to a normal walking motion, Elloise tells me she has something else for me.