The zpocalypto book bund.., p.72
The ZPOCALYPTO Book Bundle (#1 of 4), page 72
Stop wasting time again!
I scroll through the Link, blinking away the stinging in my eyes, and find the initial admittance report from NYMC. The basic information is there: my name and age, height and weight, blood type, viral infection status (negative), implant status (version 4a, intact, latent), and current legal life expectancy. At last I find what I’m looking for, the triage nurse’s report at the emergency room:
<< 1: 17Y/O ♀ ADMITTED POST TRAUMA (EXPLOSION) >>
<< 2: SECONDARY DIAGNOSIS: DROWNING >>
<< 3: PRESENTED UNCONC >>
<< H2O INHAL ASPHYXIA W/RESUSC BY EMS ENROUTE >>
<< PER EMS: BLEEDING FR L EAR, NOSE, MULT ABRXNS TO LIMBS, TRUNK, HEAD. ABD SWELLING >>
<< NML EKG. BAGGED W/100% O2, SALINE DRIP >>
<< CXR, ABD/NECK/HD CT SCANS, EEG, IV RINGERS. CBC, TYPE & CROSS 3 UNITS STDBY. >>
Most of this is incomprehensible to me, just a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo, but I get the basic gist of it. There was an explosion, just as the man and nurse said there was. The cuts and bruises all over my body are proof enough of that. And I drowned and was resuscitated.
Why can’t I remember any of it?
I look, but there’s no mention of any of my friends.
No mention of Kelly.
And... Jake. I remember him now, the other member of our group.
That’s six of us, not five.
Lost one of them.
Which one?
I remember the swim through the tunnel.
We were going to meet up with them, Jake and Kelly. The four of us were in a boat. They were coming back a different way, through different tunnel. I can’t remember why. Reggie was rowing. Ash and Micah were splashing water and...
The rumble of the airplane engines.
Flying low over us. Dropping...
A bomb.
A sob escapes from my throat. Kelly and Jake would’ve been in the tunnel when the bomb fell.
We’ve already lost one of them.
Was it Kelly? Jake?
No! Stop! You don’t know!
One of us. Not two, one. One of the five of us.
Jake wasn’t one of us.
Promised them five.
Not Jake. He wasn’t a gamer. He doesn’t count.
Stop wasting time!
I glance over the side rails toward the floor, searching for the motion sensors the man had mentioned. I see them in the gloom: four small pods attached to the four corners of the bed, red eyes in the shadows staring at each other. They’re directly in line with where a person getting up would set their feet. Easy enough to avoid, now that I know they’re there.
First, though, I need to take care of these damn tubes in my body.
The IV turns out to be harder than I thought. I waste precious minutes trying to loosen a corner of the tape holding the needle in my neck. I finally manage to peel a little away. It sticks like glue and feels like I’m ripping ten layers of skin off. I give it a hard yank and the needle comes out. Blood leaks out of the hole and drips down my neck. I feel it pool into the hollow of my collar before spilling over and running down my chest. I dab at it with the sheet. I can’t bother with bandaging it up right now. It’ll have to clot on its own.
Blood all over the bed now. Bad decision. No way I can hide it. No turning back now.
Another ten minutes have passed. Nurse Mabel will be returning in another twenty. I need to hurry.
I lift the sheet off my legs and stare at the urinary catheter between them. Just the sight of it makes me tremble with rage. My hands shake as I give it a tug. It doesn’t move. A crazy thought enters my head: maybe it’s sewn in. But then I remember Mabel and her syringe, before she took the other one out.
About a foot past the point where the yellow tube comes out of me, there’s a Y. One arm connects to a clear rubber tubing that snakes off the side of the bed. I watch that line for a moment, fascinated as several teaspoons of pale yellow urine leak out of me and run down the tube. I’m peeing without even consciously doing it. I guess that’s the point.
The other arm of the tubing ends in some kind of adapter. There’s a flange on the tip that looks like it would fit a syringe. After inspecting it more closely, I guess that it has to be where the nurse extracted the liquid earlier. There must be some kind of balloon inside of me that anchors the catheter in my bladder. But without a syringe to empty it, how am I supposed to get it out? I can’t very well escape dragging a bag of pee around with me.
I check the time. Fifteen minutes before she’s back.
I could disconnect the catheter from the bag. It looks like it’d just pull apart. But then what? I’d still have the tube inside of me and I’d leak pee all over the place.
Pop the balloon.
How the hell am I supposed to do that? It’s inside my goddamn body! Minutes tick by and panic rises up inside of me.
Finally, I bend down as far as I can and stretch the tubing until it reaches my face. I stick the flange end between my teeth and try to bite through it between the adapter and the junction. My stomach clenches. I grind my teeth on the soft rubber until they pierce through it. A warm gush of liquid spurts into my mouth. I immediately gag and spit it out onto the bed before realizing it’s just water. I give the balloon an experimental tub, but it still won’t budge.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Down to ten minutes.
I bend over one more time. This time, I try to suck out the remaining solution. My mouth fills. I spit that out, too. Finally, the tube slides out of me.
Five minutes.
I make my way to the foot of the bed, then slowly and carefully crawl over it. My head swims and the room spins, but I blink and force myself to focus. I’d puke, but there’s nothing in my stomach. I haven’t eaten in days and my body shakes from weakness. I don’t know how I’m ever going to overpower anyone, much less free Ashley and any of the others so we can escape.
I could slip out when she comes in.
Except she’ll just come after me.
Two minutes.
I’m completely naked, but I don’t feel the cold. Blood drips down my chest, splattering onto the floor. My vision blurs. I can’t even stand upright. How am I going to overpower her?
I can’t.
One minute.
Time’s up.
I lean on the bed frame, shaking. Nurse Mabel will walk in and find me like this. She’ll tie me up. But I can’t think of what to do. My knees feel like rubber. My hands burn. My head spins. A part of me doesn’t care anymore. I want to crawl back into bed.
Another minute passes and the door remains closed. I draw in a deep breath. Then another. It clears my head. I feel a little stronger.
Slowly, my knees stop shaking. It feels good to stand, to feel the solid ground beneath my feet. I bend down carefully, wobblingly, then straighten back up again. Every muscle sings out. My stomach grumbles. She’s now five minutes late.
What happened to her?
“Little Miss Mabel must have fallen asleep,” I whisper.
I make my way over to the IV and yank the tubing free from the bag and wrap one end around my fist. I can use it to bind her if I have to. The bag drips the rest of its contents to the tile floor.
“Let’s get things moving,” I whisper, and I kick at one of the motion detectors. Nothing happens. There’s no alarm, no flashing light.
But within seconds I hear a distant door slam, followed by footsteps hurrying toward the room. My heart pounds in my ears and my skin tingles. I position myself. Now I’m ready.
The lock disengages with a click.
I step behind her as she rushes into the room.
“—always happens when I’m on the toilet,” she says. She’s halfway across the room before it registers I’m not in bed. She spots the bloodstains on the sheets and gasps. “What the—“
“Looking for me?”
She spins around, but I’m ready for her. I grab her arm and yank as she turns. She’s off-balance, completely unprepared. I’d expected that. The motion jolts her off her feet and she slams headfirst to the floor and cries out. Her elbow hits next. I hear it crack, and I’m on her in an instant. I yank her good arm up her back, past the point of resistance. She screams.
“Shut up!” I tell her, growling to keep my voice from shaking.
She keeps right on screaming. I yank even harder, then realize she’s in agony. I yield slightly. The volume of her cries diminishes.
“You need to shut the fuck up,” I breathe into her ear. “Do you understand? Scream again, and I’ll rip your arm out of your socket.”
She snaps her mouth shut but continues to resist. Tears fall from her eyes. It just pisses me off all the more seeing them.
“Who else is here?”
She doesn’t answer. I twist her arm and she yelps.
“Who else is here?”
“The guards.”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me, you little shit!”
“I’m not. I’m— Oh! Okay, okay. It’s... it’s just me.”
“That’s better.”
I place my knee on her arm and lean all my weight onto it. She grunts but I won’t let up. I unwind the plastic IV tubing from my fist and grab her other hand and pull it behind her and up until it joins the other.
“My arm’s broken!” she wails. “You’re hurting me!”
“I told you to shut up.”
Once I’ve got her wrists tied, I loop the loose end around her neck and draw it tight so she can’t pull her hands down over her feet. Then, standing up with my weight on her neck, I reach over and grab the catheter off the bed.
“I should shove this down your throat, you sick bitch.” Instead, I tie up her feet with it. It stretches even more than the IV line, but it’s stronger. It won’t break. My fingers slip over the lubricant she used to insert it into me. I wipe them off on her smock.
She’s stopped struggling and now just lies on the floor with her cheek pressed against the linoleum. Her eyes follow me as I search under the bed and in a small table for my clothes. They’re not there.
“Where’s the alarm for the motion detectors?” I demand.
She doesn’t answer.
I take a step toward her and she flinches.
“Where?”
“In my pocket. It’s in my pocket!”
I reach under her and find her Link. The screen is already awake, still flashing the alert. I thumb it off. I bend down and place my lips up next to her ear.
“Now, where are my clothes?”
“They’re burnt, torn. You can’t—”
“Where can I get some?”
“I don’t— Ow! In the supply closet, I think. Maybe. I don’t know.” Then she half-laughs, half-coughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
Blood trickles from a cut on her scalp. I reach up and pull the sheet from the bed and use the corner of it to dab it away. She winces.
“Just a cut. It’s not deep. You’ll live. Now, tell me where we are. What is this place?”
“You’re choking me.”
“You can breathe just fine. Where are we? Answer my questions if you want to live.”
“You can’t kill—”
“I don’t think you want to find out what I’m capable of. Now, one last time, then I really am going to hurt you. Where the fuck am I?”
“Someplace you’ll never escape from.”
I grab a handful of her hair and yank up. She inhales sharply.
“You’ll never get out of here alive,” she says. “You or your friends.”
“So, they’re here?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Are they all here? Ashley? I heard you talking about her to that man earlier.”
“I knew you were awake, you little slut.”
“Then you should’ve finished putting the restraints on me.”
“I should have.”
“Shut the fuck up. What about Reggie? Micah?”
Nothing.
“Kelly?”
“Dead. Your boyfriend’s dead. They’re all dead. You’re dead!”
I wrench he head up. “Don’t you fucking lie to me!”
“Okay, okay! They’re all here.”
“All of them?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Okay, here’s an easy one. Answer it honestly and I might let you live. Who’s being transitioned tomorrow?”
She sucks in a sharp breath, but still refuses to answer.
“I know what you plan on doing to us. I know about the new implants and the injections. The new virus, this alpha?”
She twitches beneath me.
“What is it? What does it do?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re planning on making us Volunteers, aren’t you?”
“You’re already dead.”
“Brave words coming from someone who should be begging for her life,” I spit.
“You’re just a child. You won’t hurt me. You can’t. You need me.”
“Don’t test me.”
“Kill me then. I don’t care.”
“How did you get caught up in all this? What’d we ever do to you?”
“You’ll never get away—”
“Answer me!”
She laughs.
My resolve begins to crack. Doubt finds its way back in. Just that one laugh, and she’s got me questioning myself.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she says, panting. “Or what.”
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with: Arc.”
She laughs again. “This is a lot bigger than just Arc.”
“Nothing’s bigger than them, except maybe the government.”
“Arc is the government, child. Has been for a long time.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“Maybe you should ask your grandfather.”
This stuns me for a moment. I shake it off. “People have been warning me about him my entire life, bitch. There’s nothing he or anyone can say that I haven’t already heard before. Tell me where we are.”
“You can’t save them. You can’t save yourself. It’s too late for all of you.” She’s wheezing now from the weight of my body on her back. She cough-laughs. “All of you, bought and paid for—”
Something happens to me then. Rage fills me. I don’t know where it comes from, but when it does, it utterly consumes me.
I jerk her head up again. “I told you that you didn’t want to find out what I’m capable of.”
I lean forward and thrust my arm out again, shoving her head at the floor. It hits with a loud, sickening crack! I can feel the jolt all the way up into my shoulder. She gurgles once, then her chest collapses beneath me.
I wait for it to rise again.
I wait and wait.
Until I realize that I could wait forever and it never will.
Chapter 17
I don’t know how long I sit on Nurse Mabel, my mind in complete shutdown mode, before I notice something dripping down my arm. It’s warm. Slowly, I lower my gaze. I don’t see anything there at first, but then there’s the faintest glistening on my skin. I’m crying. I’m actually crying.
I reach up and touch my cheeks. They’re dry.
The tears splatter on her white uniform. They splatter on the floor. Dark asterisks. They’re not tears. They’re too red.
I reel backwards until I collide with the bed. It rolls easily away from me, and I fall to the floor. I stay there for several more minutes staring at what I’ve just done.
I’ve killed someone.
But how can that be? I’m not a killer.
More wetness on my arm. I’m still leaking from my neck.
I should be happy. She said I was already dead, but the dead don’t bleed.
I start to shake. I tell myself it’s the shock. But the truth is, I’ve already gotten past the idea of being a killer. It was self-defense. She deserved it. This isn’t panic. It’s not remorse. It’s relief.
I just killed someone and a part of me actually thrilled at the idea of it. What the hell kind of monster have I become?
Not become, my mind whispers. It’s what you’ve always been.
Eric knew what I was capable of. That’s why he sent me to take hapkido. He knew I had a violent streak inside of me. He knew about the pain and the fury I’ve always kept bottled up. It needed an outlet.
Maybe yoga would have been a better choice. Or meditation.
I drop my head into my hands. “This is not me,” I moan. “I’m not like this. I’m not evil.”
But the proof is lying in a pool of blood in front of me. I let my rage get the better of me, and now a woman lies dead on the floor. I can’t stop staring at her. But neither can I bring myself to wish her back to life. I wanted her dead. I still do. I wanted her to pay for what she’s done to me and my friends.
And now she has.
I can’t look at her anymore. I bury my head in my arms. I focus on my breathing exercises. I need to put this past me. I need to find the others.
But I don’t move. I know I should. The time on the nurse’s Link tells me it’s long past two in the morning. Only a few more hours before dawn, when more Arc people will arrive.
This is bigger than just Arc.
I don’t care. It’s semantics. Whoever these people are, no matter what company they work for, Arc is at the center of it. Arc is everything.
I look up. I can’t stop staring at her. Her head rests in a puddle of congealing blood. Her eyes stare glassily, accusingly. They’re filming over.
We stare at each other. I’m alive, she’s dead.
Her jaw twitches.
It startles me. I lean forward and stare harder at her face. Was it just my imagination? Maybe I didn’t kill her.
Nothing.
Wishful thinking. She really is gone. It was all just my imagination. Or her muscles relaxing, tension in her face releasing. She’s dead. I accept that. I know what I’ve done.
I get up and nudge her with my toe. For the first time, I’m fully aware of my nakedness. She can’t see me, yet I’m suddenly feeling self-conscious. But I need to take care of her first. Then I’ll find clothes. I remove the IV tubing from her hands. I use her scissors to snip off the rubber catheter from her feet. I can’t stand seeing her like this, her body bound and drawn into itself, in some unnatural pantomime of agony. I hate that the IV tubing has sliced into her chubby wrists and left purple ligature marks that will never heal. My own bruises will, in time, but not hers. The chunks of severed catheter remind me of amputated fingers. I flash on the zombie that grabbed me in the Midtown tunnel, its hand floating in the water. I scatter the rubber bits across the room.
