inDIVISIBLE

by Hunter, Ryan

  My PCA beeped, my five minute indicator to be waiting at the entry. I had to get away instead but I couldn’t leave with this tracking device still in my body. That would alert them and give them a reason to take me in or take me out sooner than I could afford. Besides, five minutes always meant thirty where medical concerns were involved.

  I plunged the knife downward, through the skin near my thumb, just below the sensor. Blood spurted across the cutting board, leaving droplets fanned over the counter. Then the pain hit. I clenched my teeth together and vomited in the sink.

  My skin flopped.

  I yanked the knife from the cutting board, knowing I had to either dig into my flesh to get the sensor or make another cut.

  Blood gushed onto the cutting board when I pressed on my skin, pushing at the sensor to slide it from the now gaping hole, but it didn’t move, it stayed in my skin as if anchored there, pain searing hot when I tried to push it free.

  My PCA beeped again, a warning they waited at the door. Any other day I’d have to wait in line for hours for treatment—and today they decided to be prompt? I couldn’t stop now. I plunged the knife a second time and groaned. The vomit hurled from my throat and I barely made it into the sink as my hand was now pinned to the board.

  The entry door opened and footsteps descended the spiral staircase just ten feet away.

  The doctor’s office had used the override feature? Really? I wasn’t sick enough to warrant that type of treatment.

  My hand trembled, the knife wedged so deeply in the board I couldn’t pry it loose, my skin stuck between the metal blade and plastic board. Feet on the steps turned into legs in white scrubs, hand on the railing.

  “Brynn Aberdie,” the nurse called, her voice low and hypnotic, trained to put people at ease. I picked up the cutting board and held it against my thigh behind the counter, blood running down my bare leg and pooling on the floor.

  She made her descent with a plastic smile, one hand clutching a PCA, the other holding a bottle of medicine. At the bottom of the steps, she reached down, grabbed a medical mask and pulled it over her nose and mouth, the smile disappearing, even from her eyes.

  I puked again, the pain in my right hand so bad I thought I might black out. The room swayed but I placed my left hand on the counter and held myself upright.

  She set the bottle on the counter, either not noticing or not caring about the blood splatter beyond. I braced myself against the countertop—my left hand trembling as my right hand felt the tearing pain of the cutting board beginning to fall, taking the knife and a chunk of flesh with it.

  “I can’t keep it down,” I gagged.

  She looked into my face, and must have seen the sweat rolling down my cheeks.

  “I can’t leave until you do.”

  I puked again and cried out when the knife slipped deeper, the small stretch of skin holding it to my hand tearing, sending waves of searing pain to the tips of each finger.

  She backed half a step and said, “I think you should come with me.”

  I shook my head, my eyes down, focused on the counter. Breathe.

  She tossed a second medical mask onto the counter and said, “Put this on and I’ll take you to the doctor.”

  “I can’t.” I was passing this sickness off too well. I had to make her leave so I could finish removing my sensor, so I could run to T and ask him for help.

  “I’ll take it, I promise. I just have to quit throwing up first.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and caught sight of the blood on the counter. The cutting board fell to the ground, skin ripping, and I screamed.

  I pressed my hand hard against my sleep shorts, trying to slow the bleeding without giving myself away. A warm droplet ran down my thigh, over my knee and hesitated mid-shin.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  I nodded. “Cut myself trying to make something to eat,” I choked.

  She opened the bottle and pushed it toward me while putting distance between herself and the blood. Whatever I had, she obviously didn’t want to contract.

  “Take it.”

  My stomach hurled again and she stepped backward.

  “I can’t leave until you drink it all.” She lifted her PCA, activated the video mode. As she lowered the PCA to capture the image of the blood, I grabbed the bottle.

  She slung the camera back up to record me chugging before she stopped the camera and bolted for the stairs.

  Her feet rang out with each step up the metal steps until the door clicked open and then slammed shut.

  I stuck my good fingers down my throat to expel the meds. She’d have to report what she saw. I just hoped it would take her long enough to allow me time to escape.

  I rinsed my mouth before falling to my knees, digging a dishtowel from the drawer beside me. I wrapped it tightly around the wound before grabbing another to wipe up the blood I’d left behind. I couldn’t be here when my mother returned and that would be hard enough on her. I couldn’t leave blood behind too.

  Once cleaned, I dropped the rag through a bin entitled biohazard and stripped my clothes off to add to it. I rinsed the bottle and tossed it in the recycling compartment.

  My stomach still churned and my hand screamed in pain. The only medication I could find was my mother’s headache medicine and I gulped down two tablets before hurrying to my room. Ten minutes later, I had dressed in a pair of loose shorts and t-shirt—easiest with one hand—packed a change of clothes into my backpack and gathered all the food I could carry without attracting too much attention.

  I headed up the stairs after one last look into my mother’s room, reminding myself that if I stayed she’d be in danger of death herself, and I had no choice but to leave before they connected her to the same ideals that had destroyed my father.

  But what if T was wrong about the kill list?

  I reached for the doorknob and found it locked from the outside. My heart thunked. I had no sensor now to activate the system. I stepped back, the blood already seeping through the rag around my hand. If I didn’t get out soon I’d leave a puddle.

  I caught my bottom lip between my teeth, eyes watering with pain. I hadn’t sliced open my hand for nothing. Perhaps I could use the emergency escape … I slipped my fingers over the keypad beside the door. Using it would alert the Alliance, but I’d be gone before they could check on me—if I hurried.

  I thought back to the woods and my conversations with my father. The numbers for the override popped into my mind as clearly as if he spoke to me now and I punched them in slowly, making sure I didn’t mess up and lock the doors permanently.

  The indicator light didn’t change and I waited, sweat trickling from the hair at my temples. I couldn’t have forgotten the numbers. It was impossible—unless the Alliance had changed them.

  I swallowed and lifted my hand to enter them a second time with the light changed and the door clicked. I pushed through the door and into the sunlight, rushing through my yard to the foothills a few hundred feet away. All I had to do was make it past the tree line.

  CHAPTER 8

  Cotton drifting from the trees made my itching worse though none of it actually seemed to hit me. A few cotton flakes fell here and there—enough that I took to scratching my arms, my stomach and somewhere in the middle of my back with my left fingernail that barely reached. I rubbed my eyes and stopped, noticing the approved hiking path directly in front of me. Did I walk it or start into the trees alone?

  I adjusted the strap over my shoulder and itched where it had rubbed. I knew my dizziness came from blood loss, but couldn’t figure out what caused the itching. It had started as a patch on my stomach just after I left my home. Now it reached from the crown of my head to my toenails—looking like little red dots that illustrated the affected areas.

  I stopped and groaned, using my short nails to gouge my thighs and lower back. I’d go off trail, I decided. I stepped over logs, around rocks and trees. With the pain that radiated from my hand, I couldn’t figure out
how I felt anything else at all and yet the itching continued.

  I took a calming breath and searched the hillside for anything familiar I’d seen when I’d come this way with T. I scratched my nose, swallowed and plowed ahead, sticks crunching under foot.

  I wanted to call for T but knew it would be too dangerous. I stopped, the pain in my hand pulsating in waves up my arm, throbbing with each step. I cradled it against my body and focused on that pain, trying to block out the other annoyances that threw me off course.

  I spotted the trail through the trees and veered off to my right, further into the wilderness. I’d made it about half a mile before my throat grew tight and my breathing turned to a wheeze.

  I balanced myself against a tree trunk and waited for my breath to return and when it didn’t, my heart raced. “T,” I whispered.

  I sat on a stone at the base of the tree and leaned my head back, opening my airway. I’d only ever had one allergic reaction before, but it had felt just like this—had made me itch, cut my air, made me pass out … I just couldn’t think of anything that I’d had that would cause this. Could it be shock from the knife wound?

  I unwrapped the bloody towel and stared down at the gaping wound. The bleeding had stopped. I wiggled my fingers and it started again.

  A twig snapped and I jerked my head up in time to find T, peering from behind a tree. He recognized me and rushed forward, bending over my hand and asking, “What have you done?”

  I tried to smile. “Sensor’s gone.”

  T wrapped the bloodstained towel around my hand, his face paling. “What did you use to cut it out?”

  I focused on his face, prayed he wouldn’t be sick because the cramping in my stomach would just copy his reaction. “A butcher knife.”

  “Sheesh,” he stood and turned away, both hands clasped behind his neck. When he turned, he had some of his color back. “There are easier ways than doing—doing—that.” He pointed to my hand and I wanted to laugh despite everything.

  “It’s a long story,” I said instead.

  T pulled me to my feet and we started further up the canyon before I said, “Something’s wrong, T. I don’t feel right.”

  He checked my eyes, felt my forehead and noticed the hives that covered both arms and my legs beneath the streaks of blood I’d forgotten to wipe away.

  “What did you take?” he asked.

  The wind hummed through the trees, making the leaves dance and tinkle. “Just my mom’s pain meds. I’ve taken them before and they’ve never done this.”

  His forehead wrinkled as he thought, the trees casting shadows around him, and over him in a rhythmic pattern that spattered him in light and dark.

  I tried to relax, but my body trembled, tensing in unceasing waves of stomach cramps and burning pain, with the itching coming in third but pushing for the forefront.

  “How many?”

  I shuddered from sudden chill. “Two.”

  He rubbed his palms up and down my arms. “What else?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “What else?” he sounded like he was getting angry and I didn’t understand.

  I thought back to the kitchen—the knife and the blood—the bottle of medicine. “Immune booster,” I choked out.

  “Did you read the label?”

  I shook my head, wanting nothing more than to sleep this all away.

  “Did you read the label?” he asked again.

  “No,” I wheezed. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because I made myself throw it up right after I took it.”

  “Some of it must have gotten into your system anyway and with the way it’s progressing, we don’t have time to wait it out.”

  “Some of what?” my eyes closed but I could still see the swaying of the branches above me in a cascade of red and black through my eyelids.

  “Whatever they were using to kill you.”

  “The immune booster came from the doctor’s office.” Even as I spoke I remembered my own fears of taking the booster, irrational as they were.

  His arms gradually softened and he pulled me up off the stone and into his arms. “They usually work with things that could easily be mixed up anyway, like substituting one medication for one they know you’re allergic to. It keeps people from becoming suspicious.”

  “You’re just one conspiracy theory after another, aren’t you?”

  T stepped away from me but held onto my arms. “If you didn’t think anything was wrong with the booster, why did you throw it up, Brynn?”

  I looked away, saw the blood again, dripping down my leg as I stared at the bottle, felt the pain of the knife ripping through my flesh and then, I remembered the words of the doctor stating that they were containing everyone … this wasn’t a real sickness and they knew it. “Something was off,” I whispered.

  T stroked my cheek and chills raced down the right side of my body. He must have seen the trembling because he pulled me tighter, wrapped both arms around me.

  “They just tried to kill you, Brynn, just like they killed your father, your grandmother and Kamp.”

  “They didn’t kill my grandmother.”

  “You talked about her in Greece, remember? What was she when she died, sixty-five?”

  “Sixty-eight.”

  “That’s right. She had a few health problems. Was no longer working, thus a drain on the One United system.” Sarcasm tainted his words and shot through me like adrenaline. “Did you know that when my grandmother was born, life expectancy was eighty? That’s almost fifteen years longer than your grandmother lived.”

  I pulled back to look at him. “They didn’t kill her.”

  “She was scheduled for surgery,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “She didn’t make it because she was too old.”

  “My father said she still lived like she was a young woman, up until the day she died. She wasn’t old.”

  “She wasn’t working—wasn’t paying taxes—wasn’t contributing, just taking.”

  “She had a pacemaker, okay? It worked great until one day there was this glitch, a little shock to her heart when there shouldn’t have been, and then before she could go in for surgery, there was another. It happened too fast. They couldn’t help her.”

  T licked his lips and glanced to the sky as if to read the words he wanted to say. “They didn’t want to help her, Brynn. When people quit working the Alliance considers them a drain on society so they’re put on death lists and allowed to die when it’s convenient. Your grandmother’s pacemaker malfunctioning made her time of death convenient.”

  “You’re saying they made it malfunction?”

  He shrugged and sat beside me. “Maybe. Maybe not, but the second shock, I’d almost guarantee came from them.”

  I didn’t want to think about my grandmother—couldn’t even remember how we’d gotten onto the subject. “What does this have to do with anything?” I asked.

  T turned my arm over and stared at the rash on the underside. “They killed your grandmother just like they tried to kill you today.”

  The fears I’d felt while waiting for the nurse returned, and I knew it was time to trust my gut. The Alliance wanted me dead.

  I wanted to live.

  “How do they get away with it?”

  T shifted. “We gave them the power to get away with anything. The question is, how do we take that power back?”

  I scratched my head, my hair tangling around my fingers. “It’s getting worse, T. My throat—”

  “You need a doctor,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No doctors.”

  T shoved his hands through his hair. “How long can you wait?”

  “It’s not acting too quickly. I’m okay for a few minutes.”

  “I need to get my bag then we’re leaving. We’ll find a way to help you.”

  I nodded and slid to the ground beside the rock.

  “Stay there,” T ordered. “And be quiet. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”


  I heard only his first few footsteps before he blended with the trees, then vanished altogether.

  CHAPTER 9

  A twig snapped and I flinched. Had T returned already? I searched the trees but saw no one. Minutes later, I heard voices, several men whose conversation rose and fell over the sound of their footsteps, controlled and quiet enough that even straining to hear brought no clarity to their words. Their footsteps halted as their voices rose. Based strictly on their tones, I figured there must be at least four men. Were they Alliance Security? Terrorists? A search party?

  I thought of my mother and how she must have cried to find me gone, how devastated and despondent she’d have become. Had she contacted the Alliance and demanded a search party? I wanted to contact her to tell her I was okay, that I was saving her by leaving. Besides, they monitored our communication, and with me disappearing the way I had, they’d be paying special attention to any communication surrounding my mother.

  I wondered if there may have been a way to explain things that wouldn’t have put her in danger—that would have told her why I was leaving. My hand cramped. I knew it didn’t matter now anyway.

  One man shouted at the rest, his voice angry and the others responded by fanning out, their footsteps working out in several directions.

  A tickle ran along my spine, the itching returning not only to my back but along my arms, my thighs and attacking my stomach. I sank lower behind the rock, ducking my head as what felt like a thousand ants clambered over my body. I looked down, half-expecting an ant pile and didn’t know whether to feel relieved or anxious because there was none.

  I clenched my teeth to fight back a groan and folded my arms over my chest so tightly my shoulders ached.

  The men shuffled all around me, close enough that I feared even to breathe. My throat burned now, tight and warm as it caught my breath for me and made it nearly impossible to suck in any oxygen.

  The trees swayed, and I wondered where T was. Did he know about the men out searching? Had he seen them?

  A voice called out in code directly to my right and I tensed. I could have hit his back with a rock if I’d wanted, and I was a terrible aim … He spoke into a little microphone on his collar and must have received a response through a transmitter because I couldn’t hear the reply but his response caught me off guard with the raised voice, the anger and determination.