Implant

by J. Grace Pennington

  Implant

  by J. Grace Pennington

  Copyright 2015 by J. Grace Pennington

  All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Kindle Edition, August 2015

  Cover Design: Patience Pennington

  Layout: Penoaks Publishing, http://penoaks.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, are merely coincidental.

  For my Leah

  because it’s her favorite

  and because she always supports me

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Special Thanks

  About The Author

  Chapter One

  Gordon pedaled as fast as he could, focusing on breathing deeply. Each inhalation set off a dull pain deep in his chest, but he persisted, pushing each pedal down in turn to make the buildings go by faster, trying in vain to keep pace with his rapidly increasing heart rate.

  Baum would fuss again. Gordon was “exerting himself too much.” But wasn’t that exactly how a man was supposed to get into shape? By exerting himself too much? And just how was he supposed to stop depending on Baum for everything if he never worked up more strength and energy?

  The park in the middle of town became a rapidly approaching green blur, and he left the sidewalk with a double jerk of his tires and began cutting across the grass. As he cycled up a moderate incline, he sucked in his deepest breath of the morning, feeling the ache throb beneath his ribs.

  Baum was just a worrywart.

  He fixed his gaze steadily on the big oak tree in the center of the park and was annoyed when it began fluttering, wavering before his eyes. For a quarter of a second he considered ignoring it, then the tree jolted from left to right.

  Gritting his teeth, he clutched the moist, slippery brakes and skidded to a stop. Stumbling off the bike, he winced at the cramp that pinched the back of his leg.

  He limped to the nearest tree, dragging his bike behind him by one handlebar. It was a surprisingly humid day, leaving the perspiration to make his skin sticky instead of evaporating like it should. Dropping the bike, he wiped both palms on his jeans and pulled one wrist up to eye level, trying to read the numbers on his watch.

  No use. They were jiggling like Mexican jumping beans.

  He let his hand fall limp at his side and leaned back against the tree, still panting, letting his eyelids droop shut, waiting for his heart rate to slow down.

  He winced again as his hip throbbed; a deep, dull pain that seemed to nibble into the bone. Baum had taken some blood, still trying to find out the cause of Gordon’s anemia, but the pain was lasting longer than it was supposed to. And the results hadn’t even come back yet. Honestly, it was more than seventy years since Star Trek. Shouldn’t doctors be able to beam tissue to some computerized lab that would instantly process it and beam results back by now?

  A distant cry made him open his eyes again. The world had steadied, and breathing was no longer painful.

  He studied his watch again and groaned. Nine. And it was two more miles to the office. Yes, he’d be late. Again.

  There was another cry. He strained his ears to make out the direction, and pushed himself off the tree to stand upright. Not a scream exactly, it was a high, prolonged, discordant note, ripping the thick summer air.

  Grabbing his bike again, he pulled it up and dragged it along behind him. The wail stopped after he’d taken two steps, and a faint, masculine voice drifted towards him on the breeze.

  The big oak. He could make out a group of people facing it.

  He quickened his pace, driven more by curiosity than anything else, and headed for them without making a sound, keeping one ear tilted forward for further words.

  “So you finally got a job,” he heard. “Where are you working?”

  As the word “working” met his ears, Gordon got close enough to make out the forms ahead of him. Leaning against the tree was blonde, petite Allison Greer. He’d known her in high school, and hadn’t seen much of her over the summer. She was pressed against the bark of the tree, slender hands covering her face, shaking, red sweater carefully buttoned with six buttons, just as her sweaters always were. She let out another wail, seeming unable or unwilling to produce an actual scream.

  “We want to know what your job is, Allison,” an abrasive, boisterous female voice insisted.

  Gordon didn’t need to get any nearer to identify the rest of the group. He’d seen all too much of them in school—big, muscular Ben Branson; his girlfriend Mattie, sporting her usual baggy pants, leather jacket, and pixie cut; tall, handsome Darnell Bixby Jr., with his white-toothed grin; and another boy and girl in black leather that Gordon couldn’t identify by name, but knew as part of Ben and Darnell’s clique.

  “Go away,” Allison’s voice squeaked through her fingers.

  Gordon bit down on his lower lip. Allison was—what had Baum called it? A severe high-functioning autistic savant. A long, fancy way to say she was both very autistic, and very intelligent.

  “Why do you keep covering your eyes?” Ben snorted.—

  “It’s a sign of her inability to communicate and interact with others properly,” explained Darnell, studying his nails.

  Ben grabbed her wrist and yanked it away from her red, moist face. “You freak! Why won’t you answer simple, civil questions from your old friends?”

  Gordon had crept close enough now to smell Allison’s strong but bland lavender perfume. She’d worn the same scent since he’d met her when she was thirteen, and the one time she’d gotten caught in the rain so long that the smell had been washed away, she’d come to school crying so hard that she couldn’t concentrate on the teacher’s words and had to be sent home.

  Allison’s high voice pierced the air. “Go away!”

  Ben squeezed her wrist. “Not until you answer our question.”

  She just stared a him with her one uncovered blue eye, and didn’t speak.

  Ignoring his highly developed “this-is-a-bad-idea” sense, Gordon threw down his bike, stepped up behind Ben, and said in what was meant to be an authoritative voice, “Leave her alone.”

  Ben jerked his head around, dark eyebrows raised. Recognizing Gordon, he relaxed and smiled. “Well. Gordon Harding.”

  Gordon squared his shoulders, even though his hands quaked like leaves in a storm. “I said leave her alone.”

  Allison dropped her other hand at the sound of his voice and stared at him, eyes expressionless.

  “Surely you don’t actually believe you can induce us to do anything, do you, Harding?” Darnell’s pleasing, superior tone cut into the conversation, and Mattie guffawed.

  Gordon would have retorted, but he actually didn’t believe he could induce them to do anything. In his best moments he was not in any shape to beat Ben’s brawn and Darnell’s brains.

  And this was hardly his best moment.

  “You look more like a corpse than ever,” Mattie observed.

  Gordon ignored the jab at his anemia. “Just leave Allison alone. She’s not doing anything to hurt anyone. Just�
� leave her alone.” He couldn’t help stepping back slightly as he spoke, stumbling as the cramp in his leg pinched again.

  Ben and Darnell grinned at each other, and Ben dropped Allison’s wrist and took a stride towards Gordon. “We don’t like people telling us what to do.”

  Really. Because it was clear to me that you loved it.

  “And we don’t like people not answering us,” Mattie added.

  You don’t say.

  “Grady,” Darnell called, a bit too loudly, “what would you say is a suitable punishment for such menaces?”

  The third young man shrugged. “Maybe the fort?”

  “The old fort!” Darnell flashed another grin. “Brings back one’s childhood, doesn’t it?”

  “I agree,” Ben nodded. “Mat, Jenny, get Allison. Grady and I will take care of this hero.”

  Allison wailed weakly again and put her hands over her face. Gordon stumbled further backwards, trying to reach where he’d left his bike, but he tripped on a root and fell, landing squarely on his tailbone.

  Ben and the black leather boy each grabbed an arm and hoisted him to his feet, pinching his skin too tightly between their fingers. “Come along, Harding,” Darnell said cheerfully, observing this proceeding. “A little stay in the fort will do you good.

  Why won’t they grow up? He didn’t bother to struggle as the two dragged him through the park, a few feet behind the girls, who had Allison by the elbows and were pulling her towards the colorful, plastic playset a few yards away.

  “You guys are going to make me late for work,” he protested as they marched him up to the tiny playhouse.

  “Tape, Bix?” Ben called, as the girls thrust Allison roughly through the door. Gordon watched helplessly as she fell shoulder first to the plastic floor, hands still glued to her face.

  “Right here,” Darnell called, and tossed a roll of neon-orange duct tape to Ben, who caught it and then pushed Gordon to his knees inside the doorway.

  “Don’t be idiots,” he pleaded, as Ben unrolled a two-foot string of tape and knelt beside him. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  Ben only grinned, then pulled Gordon’s hands behind his back and wrapped the tape around his wrists. He ripped off another strand for his captive’s ankles, then handed the roll to Mattie who repeated the process with Allison, after forcing her hands from her tear-streaked, red-blotched face.

  “So long!” Darnell called, ducking out the plastic, five-foot door.

  “I would give your excuses to your boss,” Ben said to Allison as he stepped over Gordon to get to the exit, “but since you won’t tell me who that is…” He shrugged his big shoulders and shut the door.

  For a moment, the bullies’ voices and laughter drifted through the faded blue and green plastic walls, but then silence settled into the tiny space, filled only with the hot smell of mildew and cobwebs climbing up the walls.

  “They shouldn’t have done that,” Allison muttered, her voice echoing off the plastic.

  “I know,” he said through clenched teeth. “They wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t opened my big mouth and tried to help. But, that’s what always happens.”

  A beat, then again, “They shouldn’t have done that.”

  Gordon sighed. “Be still, Allison. I’ll try to untape you.” Pulling his knees to his body, he planted his shoes on the ground and scooted backwards toward her.

  “They shouldn’t have done that,” she insisted.

  “I know it. They’re gone now. You’ll be okay.”

  She mumbled something that he couldn’t hear.

  “Hold still.” He felt for her hands and caught the soft knit of her sweater sleeve. He followed the fabric down to her wrists.

  “Your hands are cold,” she mumbled.

  His hands were always cold. “I’m sorry.”

  He felt over the rubbery bonds until he found the end, then began picking at it with his fingernails. It was hard to get a grip on the tape with his own hands bound together and perspiration making his fingers slippery, but he persevered until he had peeled off enough to hold onto. He started ripping it away.

  “What’s that sound?” she mumbled.

  He paused. “I’m just pulling the tape off. It might hurt, I’m sorry…”

  She didn’t reply, and he kept gently pulling at it. When he reached the layer directly against her skin, he heard her grunt a bit, but she didn’t say anything.

  He wadded the tape into a ball and dropped it to the floor. “Now could you get it off me, please?”

  “What?”

  He craned his head around and saw her staring at her ankles.

  “Allison,” he tried again. “Would you please untape my hands so I can finish freeing you?”

  She looked up again when she heard her name, then she looked at his wrists. She reached out with shaking fingers and pulled the tape away, wincing as she touched his skin. At last she jerked back, pulling the last of the sticky substance with her.

  “Ow,” he couldn’t help blurting at the stinging pain, and he wondered anew why girls put themselves through having hair waxed off, if it felt anything like that.

  She just stared at him, still holding the orange strip in her hand.

  He took it from her and wadded it up, threw it into the corner, then leaned down and pulled the tape off her ankles, then his own. “There you go.”

  As he stood, he bumped his head against the ceiling and forced himself not to yell at the pain. “Come on, Allison.”

  She still sat on the floor, legs outstretched, sliding her right forefinger through the fingers of her left hand nervously.

  Gordon sighed and opened the little door. “Let’s go.” He stepped out, and straightened up, relishing the breeze against his skin. “Do you want me to take you to work?”

  She shook her head rapidly, still moving her finger in and out.

  “Should I call your dad?”

  “No.” She put her hands down and crawled out of the house. “I can get to work.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, then turned and ran back towards his bike.

  The leg cramp was gone, but his calf still throbbed as he hurried along the grass. The bike lay on the ground where he’d dropped it. Gripping the handlebars, he pulled it up, glancing at his watch. He gritted his teeth and jumped on the bike, hurriedly pedaling towards the road again.

  By the time he reached the office he was sweating and panting again. He stumbled as he climbed off the bike and jogged towards the door, repenting, once again, of his foolhardiness. Barely glancing at the “Dr. Marc Baumgartner, M.D.” plaque, he propped his bike against the brick wall and climbed the steps to the old wooden door. Pushing it inward, he limped into the small waiting room and sank into a cushioned chair, wondering if he would ever walk again.

  Fine shape he’d be in for work today. Tired out at only ten in the morning. No wonder nobody else wanted to hire him.

  “Gordon, is that you?” Baum’s even tones called from his office.

  “Just catching my breath, Uncle Baum,” Gordon called back, focusing on the calming maroon walls and quiet brown paneling of the modest room.

  Baum stuck his head out of the hall, thick white eyebrows furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  Gordon heaved a few quick breaths before speaking. “Rode my bike.”

  The eyebrows lowered further, shadowing the quiet brown eyes. “How do you feel right now?”

  Gordon just stared at his employer from under lowered lids.

  “You know that won’t make any difference. Anemia has nothing to do with your physical fitness…”

  A wave of the hand indicated that Gordon understood. He sucked in a deep breath, drinking it like water, letting it burn relief into his lungs.

  “Come here, my boy.”

  Without question, Gordon stood up and followed the doctor through the short hall and into his predominantly yellow office. Baum closed the door behind him. The click of the latch pricked the air, then faded, replaced only by the ticking of a clock
over Gordon’s head as he sat across from the man he called uncle.

  “Something the matter?” he asked.

  “You remember the test we did a few days ago?”

  Gordon’s hand moved involuntarily to his hip. “Of course. It still hurts.”

  “It’ll hurt worse when I tell you the results.”

  Blood drained from Gordon’s face and he just stared at Baum across the office desk. When the doctor didn’t volunteer more information, Gordon licked his dry lips and asked, “Something wrong with my blood?”

  Baum stood up and advanced to the front of the desk. Leaning his hands on the wooden surface, he looked down at Gordon quietly for a moment. Then, “That wasn’t blood I took, it was bone marrow. I sent it away for a biopsy.”

  Gordon tightened his fingers around the arms of the chair. He hadn’t been a doctor’s son and worked with a doctor nearly all his life for nothing. He knew why people took marrow biopsies; what they were looking for.

  Baum’s face told him the news before his voice did.

  “Gordon—you have leukemia.”

  Gordon fell back, and his head hit the back of the chair. He didn’t know whether it was the impact or the news that made him feel dizzy. “Leukemia?”

  “It’s cancer of the white blood cells…”

  “I know what leukemia is,” Gordon snapped. He tightened his hold on the arms of the chair until his fingernails dug into the leather. “What type?”

  “Chronic lymphocytic. The biopsy came out positive ZAP-70...”

  “What does that mean?” Gordon pushed out of his chair, stiffening until he could look down on Baum.

  The doctor placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Gordon, sit down.”

  Dizziness returned, and Gordon dropped back into the chair.

  Baum sat on the edge of the desk, folded his hands over his knees, and sighed. “I’ve suspected for awhile. I couldn’t find any other cause for your anemia.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” Gordon ground his teeth.

  “I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to worry you until I was. Your father…”

  “My father. You want to blame everything on him, don’t you?”