by DeVere, Taya
“You want one of those chips. Don’t you, Enyd?”
She’s too afraid to look at him. Too scared to see judgment or criticism on his beautifully rough face. But she should know better; Samuel is beyond such things. His heart is full of warmth, love, and third chances. Every time Enyd is near him, she feels like a better person. She is a better person. Someone worthy.
She picks up the Bible and waves it in the air. “Is a chip against His will?”
Samuel smiles, but doesn’t answer. He reaches for Enyd’s hand, the one holding his Bible. When their fingers touch, Enyd holds her breath. The warm sensation travels from her stomach all around her body. Let them see. Let them walk into the room and witness this love.
His hands browse the Bible’s thin pages. Enyd places her hands on her lap, unsure what to do with them. Not only does Samuel make her feel like a teenage girl, but he makes her act like one as well.
“All things are lawful for me. But not all things are helpful. I will not be enslaved by anything. But I refuse to tell you what to do, Enyd. It’s not my place to do so.”
They sit in silence while the spirited woman on the TV takes a first taste of the vegetable stew. When the hallway lights turn off for the nighttime count, Samuel reaches for Enyd’s hand. When the rest of the prisoners return to their cells, the two sit in comfortable silence.
Hands folded. One mind at ease. One in turmoil.
***
The pain is almost unbearable. Enyd wakes up amidst beeping machines and devices. Unable to lift her head, she looks to her side to see a pair of feet, poking out from under a white hospital sheet.
A commotion behind her tells Enyd that someone has noticed her moving.
“Laura? Laura, we have one. One out of twelve. It’s the old woman with ankle edema. She’s almost awake.”
Enyd blinks slowly. No matter how hard she tries to move, her head stays flat on the surface it rests on. A hospital bed? An operating table? She’s not sure.
A voice with a thick Nordic accent fills her ears. It’s pleasant—soothing—to hear the woman talk. But the feeling of losing control sends Enyd’s pulse racing. The monitor next to her now beeps frantically.
“Enyd? Enyd, can you hear me?”
She opens her mouth to talk, but her throat is too dry. A woman in a white doctor’s coat snaps her fingers. “Nurse Saarinen, could you get a glass of water? Remember, not the tap. Use what we brought over on the jet.”
Soon Enyd feels a metal straw gently pressing against her lips. She drinks the water from the cup that the nurse is holding. When she sucks in air instead of water, the doctor gestures for the nurse to go get a refill.
“Enyd, dear. I’m Doctor Solomon. How are you feeling?”
Enyd smacks her lips together, clears her throat. “Is it done?”
Doctor Solomon reaches for Enyd’s head and strokes her hair gently. Her touch is a weird contrast with the throbbing pain Enyd feels at the back of her skull. She wants to lift her hand and touch the bald patch on her head. But her arm is made of lead, her fingers sleeping soundly.
“Yes, dear. The chip is installed. The operation went well.” The doctor reaches for Enyd’s fingers, squeezes them firmly between her warm hands. “But I’m afraid there was a complication.”
Why is a woman nearly half her age calling her “dear”? It makes her feel even smaller. Even more out of control. Out of her comfort zone.
“A complication?” Enyd says, her voice raspy and weak. “What kind of a complication?”
“It’s your chip, Enyd,” the doctor says and smiles apologetically. “I’m afraid it’s not firing properly.”
“Firing?”
“That’s right. The implant was installed successfully, but it’s not integrating with the system.”
Enyd swallows her annoyance and says, “So I can’t go where he went?”
“I’m sorry, hon. But I don’t quite understand.”
“Warden Bailey. He left London and moved somewhere safe, and I was promised I could go too. I just need some time to convince… I need to get Samuel…” Enyd’s voice fades away; the dryness in her throat causes too much pain. The nurse and the metal straw could not have returned at a better time.
Doctor Solomon lets Enyd drink in silence. She turns and puts on a set of AR-glasses. Small red dots blink on the side of the black device. Enyd turns to Nurse Saarinen. “If she already has a chip that’ll connect her with the augmented reality, why the glasses?”
Nurse Saarinen sets the cup and the straw on a metal tray by the hospital bed or operating table Enyd lies on. “We thought it would be better this way. The glasses make it easier not to get lost between the two realities.”
Enyd has no idea what that means.
The doctor takes off the glasses and turns back to face Enyd. “Okay, dear. We’ll need to move you back to the penitentiary. You can get back to work. Live your life as usual, though you’re not to leave the prison premises at any time. Only a few places in London remain free of the virus. Your place of work is one of them, but I can’t promise you your home is. Not anymore.”
“And when will I get to travel? Can Samuel get his chip in prison? I don’t think he’s allowed to leave. Not for a non-mandatory medical procedure.”
Nurse Saarinen and Doctor Solomon exchange looks. The nurse turns to check on another patient, and the doctor sits down with Enyd. The hospital bed creaks slightly under her weight.
“Sweetheart. Prisoners are not eligible for the Happiness-Program. Only a few people in London are. Warden Bailey signed a reference letter for you. Only a dozen other government employees have been Chipped and moved to the City of Finland.”
“Last I checked, Finland was a country. Not a city.”
The doctor’s laughter is genuine. Amused. “Well, you must have been under anesthesia longer than we thought.” The doctor squeezes her hand tighter when she sees Enyd’s horrified expression. “I’m kidding, Enyd. You are perfectly fine. We just need to figure out why your brain is rejecting the chip. Or better yet, why it’s stopping it from working.”
“And how long will that take?”
The doctor pats Enyd’s hand twice, lets go, and takes a step back. “We have our best people working on it. It could be a matter of days, or even hours, until your chip gets the boost it needs. And as soon as it does, we’ll send a plane for you.”
Enyd forces herself to sit up on the hospital bed. The room spins, and her stomach flips threateningly. “You don’t know what’s wrong with me. You don’t know how to fix this.”
“Not at the moment, no. But I will. We will. The good news is that you’re not the only one.”
“Only one… Only one, what?”
“The only Unchipped person in the City of England.”
***
It’s time for lockdown. Enyd waits until the guards get the restless inmates into their cells, knowing that one will remain unlocked. Ever since things started to get really bad outside, the guards have left Samuel’s cell unlocked at all times. The prisoners listen to him, more than they listen to the prison staff. Enyd knows it’s only a matter of time before the riot will begin. She was surprised when it didn’t start a few months ago when the running water was cut off, leaving the prison at the mercy of the old well outside. They’ve all followed the news closely. Everyone knows what’s to come. Soon, not even the uncanny magic in Samuel’s soothing words will keep the men from panicking.
As she walks down from the office room upstairs, a group of five prisoners gestures for her to come to their cells. Enyd steps onto the metal ramp above the stairs.
“What’s going on, Enyd? We haven’t had a single meal today. The kitchen’s been closed since last night’s lockdown.”
She turns around, deciding it’d be better to not start this conversation.
“Yeah, what the bloody hell? And why is part of your hair shaved off?”
More inmates gather in front of their cell doors. Jaxon, the one who speaks for the othe
r hungry men, waves his hand and says, “I know we’re all as good as dead, but there are better ways to go than starvation.”
Sighing, she turns back around to face them. Enyd swallows and pats her sides. She takes out a USB drive and shoves it into an electrical tablet by the stairs. A metal door rattles open. She makes her way downstairs, doesn’t stop by the cells. As she walks to the door that leads into the main hallway, she takes out a keycard that will open another thick metal door. It slides open. Then she heads back upstairs, locks herself in before she buzzes the cell doors open. The guards won’t forgive her for this, she knows. But Jaxon is right; doomed or not, these men need to eat.
Jaxon walks up to the open door, and the rest follow. Enyd points at the keycard, resting above the door’s electrical lock. “That’ll get you into the kitchen. Can you cook? I can’t promise you the kitchen staff’s going to help you.”
“Pff…” Jaxon huffs. “Can I cook…” He waves Enyd off and gestures for his men to follow him. All the men disappear into the hallway. The door remains open. From above, Enyd looks around the room; there should be more than a hundred inmates rushing through their cell doors. Only ten more men hover around the living area.
“You hungry or what? If I were you, I’d not touch a thing Jaxon takes out of the oven. Let alone eat it. But I’m sure you can all find something digestible.”
The ten men follow in the footsteps of their fellow prisoners, disappearing into the hallway.
Enyd doesn’t need to think hard to know where the rest of them must be. She walks to the control panel—unattended now that so many guards have stopped coming in to work—and flicks through the security cameras, then stops once a live feed from the TV room appears. Only half of the people inside have a place to sit. The rest are standing by the rows of plastic chairs, their arms crossed on their chests.
She presses the audio icon. The news is on. Everyone’s quiet. The room’s too eerie and static, much too calm for what’s airing.
On the TV screen, a row of houses burns. It’s somewhere in the suburbs. Then the main street appears on the screen. A man dressed in a jogging suit and a pair of rubber boots stares at the flames. He’s holding a young child in his arms. The girl sits and holds onto a red-haired doll pressed against her ash-smudged winter coat. When the camera zooms in on her pouting, serious face, she lifts her hand to wave at it.
People sit doubled over, crying next to their suitcases, backpacks, and duffel bags. Cars are honking, trying to get through the clutter of random obstacles on the road. When a woman stops and coughs into her closed fist, people back away in horror.
But where are they to go? There are only a few facilities in the United Kingdom that this sickness hasn’t reached. This prison is one of them. So is a part of the hospital, that now serves as the Chip-Center. Where Enyd was diagnosed as Unchipped and sent back to work like nothing had happened.
The pouting girl drops her doll and starts crying. Enyd clears her throat. “The kitchen is now open, my good people. Thought I’d let you know.” A few of the inmates standing nearby the speaker turn around to look at it. Rory Mitchell nods at the TV and says, “Shit’s crazy, Enyd. What the hell are we supposed to do?”
“You can start by fixing your own damn supper. None of the food deliveries have arrived this week, so you’ll need to get by with what we got.”
This gets the attention of half the room. The prisoners turn to stare at the speaker.
A riot. It’s now or never. And Enyd won’t stand a chance.
Enyd continues, “Any trouble or fighting, I’m sending in the guards. And they are pissed off, more than usual. If Jaxon locked the kitchen door and tries to start some sort of a black market in there, tell him to cut that shit out. Okay?”
Rory leaves the room. One by one, the famished inmates follow him out of the TV room. Only one man remains.
Enyd makes her way downstairs and into the TV room. This time she sits down without waiting for an invitation.
“You’re not hungry?”
He sets the white-covered Bible on the empty chair to his left, then reaches for Enyd’s hand. Without answering her question or moving his gaze away from the television, his fingers slowly caress the back of Enyd’s palm.
“Samuel, you need to eat.”
He turns his face to look at her. A half-smile lingers on his dark, handsome face, somehow rough and soft at the same time. This time Enyd doesn’t stop herself from running her finger down his bearded cheek. Samuel closes his eyes. His smile deepens.
People screaming and crying—the sound of the news—fades away from around them. Samuel folds his fingers between Enyd’s and brings her hand to rest against his broad chest. The only sound in Enyd’s ears is the rushing of her blood.
When Samuel reaches for the shaved spot on Enyd’s head, she lowers her chin and leans forward. Her forehead rests against Samuel’s shoulder. She doesn’t care about who might walk in, doesn’t care about the consequences. The connection, his touch, fills Enyd with something she can hardly remember ever feeling before. A longing she had long ago abandoned and locked away, labeled too dangerous and risky.
But Samuel is worth the risk. Safe. He’s a man of God.
Enyd winces as Samuel’s fingers touch the wound the chipping has left on her head. The man pulls back and grabs her by the shoulders. “Enyd, I’m sorry. Curiosity spawns from a lack of knowledge.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. Just a complication with the procedure. I’ll need to wait here for a while. For them to fix what’s broken.”
Enyd wishes that Samuel wouldn’t ask about it. She has no answers, and the questions burn in her mind like the wound the doctor’s drill made early in the morning.
“Do you think less of me now?” Enyd asks him.
“I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to.”
Samuel pulls her closer, presses Enyd’s head against his chest. The sound of his heart beating soothes Enyd into thinking it’ll all be okay. Somehow. Someday soon. Though the nagging sound at the back of her skull tells her otherwise.
They sit for a long time. In silence, on the border between sleep and waking. Whenever she’s about to drift off, a strange sound reaches her mind.
Intermittent words.
Muffled, like the echo of the ocean.
An accent from a foreign land Enyd’s never visited.
Samuel holds her more tightly in his arms. She must have mumbled in her sleep. Something about… regret?
“Don’t ask for my forgiveness, Enyd. You’re already forgiven, but not by me. Love covers a multitude of sins.”
“But Samuel, can’t you see? Chipping is our only chance. We must move to the city. Any of them. Then we’ll be safe. Looked after. Why is that a sin? Choosing life over death?”
Samuel breathes steadily, his arms still wrapped around her. When the tears start running down her face, she’s not sure if they’re tears of happiness or sorrow.
“It’s the Mark of the Beast, Enyd. No man or a woman of faith would ever accept a microchip. Not without losing their faith. We’ve talked about this.”
They have talked about the Mark. The religious inmates were talking about the Mark of the Beast when the news about the Happiness-Program and chipping first aired about half a year ago. It was supposed to be an option for most of them, living in the United Kingdom. But then, the unknown sickness stopped the hospitals from preparing for the program. Only a handful of people—Enyd included—were chosen to visit the restricted hospital area when Doctor Solomon’s team visited from Finland.
“So I can’t be a woman of faith now? Not even if my chip doesn’t work?”
“I’m not the one to answer that question, Enyd. We all seek for our own truth and choices. And that’s okay.”
“And what is yours?” Enyd pulls back from Samuel’s embrace. She gestures toward the TV. “You can’t go out there. Not even if they let me open the prison gates. You’d be dead in a matter of days.”
Samuel cups Enyd’s face
between his rough hands. He leans forward and closes his eyes. When the man kisses Enyd, the tickling sensation in her stomach turns into flames.
Then he kisses her ears. The side of her neck. Her collarbone. In between the kisses, he whispers.
“God is love.”
“Whoever lives in love.”
“Lives in God.”
“And God in them.”
***
The sound of the AR-glasses vibrating against the desk startles Enyd awake. After eating a box of Twinkies and a few of the terrible pieces of crispbread the hospital had packed for her, she must have fallen asleep.
She stands up and stretches her stiff body. Careful not to touch the wound at the back of her head, she fixes her hair, tucking the locks behind her ear. Her leg nudges the office chair. It rolls away from her on the slightly tilted floor and then bangs against a computer stand across the room. Screen savers and blank monitors fill the room. The guards are too busy downstairs to use them.
“You’ll hear from us soon.” That’s all Doctor Solomon had said when they parted ways. Enyd had been left alone to wait for a black van, holding onto a red fabric bag containing a dozen packages of crispbread and a blinking set of AR-glasses.
And here she is again. In her office. Snoozing and eating junk food. Like nothing has changed. Except that the failing chip in her brain has changed everything for her.
As Enyd’s about to put on the glasses, the small neon-red lights on the device zap her painfully. The stabbing, numbing agony travels across her skull. Enyd lets go of the glasses like they are suddenly scorching hot in her hands. The glasses fall on the floor, where they keep vibrating. Piercing pain oozes around the puncture wound at the back of her skull.
“Motherf…”
She stares at the device in shock. Suddenly, the intermittent words she’s heard inside her head for days become clear. The man’s words mix with Enyd’s shock of sudden pain.
