Implant

by J. Grace Pennington

  For a fraction of a second he just hung there in the dark.

  Then he shot through the air at enormous velocity, speeding up until his ears popped and his eyes pulled back into their sockets. He cried out as something pierced his head.

  Then he stopped moving.

  He lay still, heaving deep breaths, letting the pain subside, shaking in time with the palpitations of his heart. Breathing. In, out. In, out.

  His back was pressed against something hard and bumpy. Heat radiated onto him from above and to his left.

  Sound washed into his ears like the rising of the tide, and he heard shots, loud blasts, and long whistles followed by explosions. Yells and screams pushed their way into the mix, and something whizzed over his head.

  His eyes were closed.

  Still panting, he forced them open bit by bit. Light flooded his brain, reddish gold. As his pupils adjusted, he saw a reddish blue sky above him, and red and brown in his peripheral vision, mixed with black motion everywhere.

  He turned his head slowly.

  People. Everywhere. Running, shouting, firing, hitting, screaming, dropping, lying, dead, on to the next person. Scattered over the barren brown landscape.

  The air felt somehow thick and hard to breathe.

  “Hey you!”

  He looked to the other side. A man in a black jumpsuit stood over him, dark eyes looking straight into his.

  And the barrel of a gray, metallic shotgun stared down at his head.

  Chapter Two

  Gordon stared up the barrel of the gun into the man’s face.

  Either he had passed out in the Academy and was dreaming, or he was hallucinating, or—

  “Who are you?” the man barked. When Gordon didn’t answer immediately, he asked, “Are you a rebel?”

  “No…” Gordon replied slowly. That seemed the safest answer with the weapon pointed at his head. “Where am I?”

  The man’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he blinked twice. “Where are you?”

  With slow, painful movements, Gordon raised himself on one elbow and surveyed the chaos that continued all around him. “Is this—Massachusetts?”

  “Yes.”

  Something whizzed over Gordon’s head and landed several yards away from him, exploding as it hit the ground. Rocks and dust flew, and a stone hit Gordon in the cheek. He cried out.

  The man stiffened again. “You’ll have to come with me to the nearest guard tower until we figure out who you are.”

  We? Guard tower? He didn’t want to follow a strange man without knowing where he was or what was going on, but the metallic weapon staring down at him gave him very little choice.

  The moment of hesitation seemed to push the man over the edge. He primed the gun.

  Gordon tried to stumble to his feet, still feeling lightheaded.

  Something whistled past his ear as a report issued from behind him. The man with the silver gun jerked back and toppled to the ground.

  Blood seeped from a bullet wound in his forehead.

  Gordon stared down at the man. Shots and explosions fired all around him.

  “Quick!” A hand gripped him under the arm and whirled him around. “Get out of here. Get to the dome. Hurry!”

  Gordon stared at this new stranger. This man was the opposite—clothes mismatched and tattered, hair ragged and uneven, a revolver gripped in his hand.

  “Dome?” was all he could manage to stammer.

  The man grabbed the back of his shirt and shoved him forward. “That way!” He pointed to a giant, sparkling blue dome in the distance. “Run! I can’t explain now, run! Or we’re both dead!”

  Hot nausea swam in Gordon’s belly, but he pushed it down and started towards the dome at a run. The chaos continued around him; men running and shooting and falling. Everything else seemed dead. There were no plants, except for a few dead trees. Human forms littered the ground, some motionless, others groaning, most bloodied. He ran past piles of rubble and occasionally one or two walls of a building.

  He ran by a man in a pitch black uniform with silver buttons. The man was lifting something; a small rectangular box, which he pointed at a ragged young man a few yards off. In an instant the black-uniformed man’s finger was on a button on top of the box.

  The other man screamed and dropped to the ground.

  Gordon’s chest constricted with pain, but he kept running.

  He looked over his shoulder. The man who had directed him to the dome was running behind him, zig-zagging in long, jagged lines.

  “Run!” the man yelled, still moving back and forth. “You’ll be safe inside the field!”

  Gordon turned forward again and tried to move his legs faster. His heart rate skyrocketed. His breaths became labored and painful. A cramp gripped his right calf, forcing him to turn his run into a limp across the rocky ground.

  Someone in a black jumpsuit raised a gun in his direction as he passed, but when a shot fired, it was the man with the gun who dropped dead. Looking back again, he saw the zig-zagging runner just lowering his pistol.

  “Go!” he screamed.

  Gordon’s muscles were on fire. He ran, taking the biggest strides he could, trying to ignore the pain in both legs.

  He gritted his teeth. Just twenty yards left—

  A black-clad arm grabbed him as he passed, pulling him to the ground. Gordon lay, panting, unable to make himself move as the man dug into the pocket of his jumpsuit. He pulled out a black box about the size of his palm and pointed it at Gordon’s chest.

  A brown blur knocked the assailant to the ground, and Gordon lay panting as the man who’d been running behind him tackled the black-suit and knocked him hard with the handle of his revolver. As the other man went limp, the zig-zagger jumped to his feet and bent down to grab Gordon by both arms. “Hurry!” he yelled over the explosions.

  Gordon tried to steady himself, but his head buzzed and spun. The world jiggled, vibrating like a violin string.

  “Get in there!” Again the man pushed him, and Gordon somehow limped the last few yards to the blue dome. Up close, he could see there were people and structures inside. The dome, at least ten stories high, sparkled and undulated.

  His heartbeats were so close together he could hardly distinguish them. The dome wiggled like a giant lump of Jello, but Gordon forced himself to limp the last few feet. An explosion went off just to his left, and he flung himself inside the blue boundary, feeling a slight electric buzz as his body passed through the barrier

  His vision shook uncontrollably, but he turned, panting, to watch for the man who had been his protector.

  The man was still zig-zagging, and was still a few yards away. A man in a black suit saw him too, and pulled a black box from his pocket.

  “Look out!” Gordon screamed, but the black-suit’s finger was already on the button.

  The zig-zagger ran a few more feet, then stumbled and fell just outside the dome. His face turned towards the smoggy sky and he coughed, spewing pink froth.

  Gordon felt his body sway, and the world quaked. Blackness swept over him as his knees gave way.

  *****

  “How is he?”

  The voice echoed faintly. It was a man’s voice, worried but not nervous. Gordon tried in vain to place it.

  “Coming around, no thanks to you,” another man grunted.

  “Can he hear us?”

  The echo died away a little bit with each syllable. Two hardened fingers touched the side of Gordon’s neck softly.

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  Slowly, the events of the morning came back to him. The Academy, being whisked away, the war zone, the wild run, the zig-zagging man.

  “We’d better not say too much. Just in case.”

  That was the clearer, worried voice.

  The second voice grunted again, and the fingers moved away from his neck. “The boy’s determined. He’ll be all right in a few minutes. You sure he’s the one?”

  “You tell me.”

 
“Don’t be an idiot.”

  “All right. So is he awake yet?”

  He felt the hardened hand touch his forehead with a gentleness that didn’t match the calloused voice.

  Instead of answering, the second man called sharply, “Gordon Harding, open those eyes. I know you’re listening.”

  Gordon opened his eyes and stared up. The face leaning over his was frowning and creased, though it didn’t look much older than forty. Deep-set hazel eyes glared at him, and the man’s dark hair fell over his forehead haphazardly. A cigarette hung from his lips easily, as if it were a part of him, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He was dressed in a dingy white shirt that had clearly once been white, and a crinkled brown tie hung loosely from his open collar.

  “Don’t try to fool me,” the man said, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and dropping it. Gordon heard a mild crunching as it was ground under the man’s shoe.

  “How do you know my name?” Gordon stammered. “And—and what’s your name?”

  The man gritted his yellowed teeth. “That’s once. Any man who asks me my name twice doesn’t have a mouth to ask it with again.” He turned his back and stomped a few feet away.

  Gordon’s eyes widened as he watched him. As his mind cleared he took in the fact that he was lying on something soft, but uncomfortable, in some kind of dirty tent about the size of his living room at home. Beyond the brown canvas walls, a steady ebb and flow of bustle and conversation provided a mundane backdrop to the disorienting situation.

  Another man stood nearby—tall, thin, fair, and clean-shaven, with enormous blue eyes hiding behind a pair of large, round glasses. His shirt, though wrinkled, was clean, and buttoned all the way up. He wore an old gray sports jacket and pants that were two shades away from matching it. A red kerchief was tied tightly around his neck.

  “Don’t mind the doc,” the man said pleasantly, moving forward with his hand extended. “Nobody else does. I’m Neil Crater.”

  Gordon reached for the hand and shook it hesitatingly. His head swarmed with questions and alarms, but he felt too weak and tired to put them into words. “Gordon Harding. W-where am I, Mr. Crater?”

  “Call me Neil, okay? And you’re at the rebel base.”

  Gordon frowned. “But—but where’s that? What happened to me? How did I get here?”

  Neil smiled, and the doc creased his brow. The doc spoke first. “I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear that you’ve been the victim of Dr. Crater’s experiment.”

  Neil shot a glare at him. Gordon sat up stiffly, wincing as each aching muscle contracted. “What do you mean?”

  “I brought you here,” Neil explained, pulling an old, worn wooden chair up to the cot where Gordon sat. “We need your help.”

  “Brought me where?” Gordon turned his attention from a faded Red Cross emblem on the tent wall and tried to shift to a more comfortable position on the lumpy cot.

  “I’d rather not tell you just where.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t ask too many questions, kid,” the doc said sternly. He still stood a few feet away, watching.

  “I can ask questions if I want,” Gordon insisted, his muscles tensing slightly. “You have no right just to drag me here—wherever here is.”

  Neil smiled again. “Maybe not. But here you are, and I couldn’t send you back for a solid week, even if I wanted to. There’s a lot I will tell you—a lot I have to tell you. But I think I’d better let you rest for a little while first.” He turned to the doc and raised his eyebrows.

  The doc scowled. “He wouldn’t need to rest if you hadn’t made that little miscalculation.”

  “By two hundred meters!” Neil protested, lowering his eyebrows again until they disappeared behind the rim of his glasses. “I’d like to see you do better.”

  “Don’t think I couldn’t.” The doc turned on his heel and stepped out of the tent, flinging the worn flap out of his way and letting it swing shut behind him.

  Neil sighed, then turned back to the cot. “Rest, Gordon,” he smiled. “I know this is strange for you—but you’ll understand later. I’ll bring you some dinner in awhile.”

  He turned to leave, but Gordon called out, “One more thing.”

  Neil turned and waited.

  Falteringly, Gordon forced out the question. “The man who saved me out there…” He couldn’t figure out how to finish his question. A tickle of nausea crawled in his stomach again.

  Neil pinched his lips together until they were a thin, pale line, making his big eyes look bigger. “That was one of our scouts. I sent him out to find you when you didn’t appear where I thought you would.”

  Gordon bit his lip as a shiver radiated out from his gut. Neil clenched his fists and spoke in a low tone.

  “Doc is right. It was my fault.” Then, “Rest, Gordon.” He turned again, and left the tent.

  Alone in the dingy cloth room, Gordon fell back on the cot. Five minutes into this new world—and already he had caused someone’s death.

  Just like his father.

  With a low groan he clamped his eyes closed, trying to shut out the sight of the zig-zagging man coughing blood outside the blue barrier.

  *****

  This time he didn’t sleep. He lay with his eyes closed for awhile, then opened them and stared at the canvas ceiling, sweating. The air, still and thick, weighed on him.

  He listened as the hum of activity outside gradually lessened, and a low rumble in his stomach gave him a clue as to why. It must be nearing the evening meal time.

  The tent flap opened, letting in the faintest gust of fresh air. Gordon sucked it in, then turned to see Doc and Neil returning, Neil with a rusty metal tray which held a steaming bowl and a cracked glass of water.

  “Sit up,” Doc said, as if Gordon had insisted on lying down to eat.

  Gordon scooted to a sitting position, and Doc pulled a chair up next to the cot and sat with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “This is all we can spare right now,” Neil apologized, handing Gordon the tray. The large bowl was half-full of a thin, colorful soup, and a piece of bread lay next to it alongside a spoon.

  “Thank you,” Gordon said, picking up the utensil. As he sipped at the spicy broth, he watched Neil pull up a chair just like Doc had and settle himself into it, also crossing his arms.

  Both men stared at him.

  Gordon crunched a bite of his bread awkwardly, and swallowed. “So…” He glanced from one of the men to the other.

  Doc looked at Neil and lowered his thick eyebrows.

  Neil glanced at him, then looked back at Gordon. “You’re familiar with the Academy of Sciences?”

  It wasn’t what Gordon had expected. He frowned. “Yes…”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  Gordon just blinked.

  “I know, it’s confusing.” Neil sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’ll start with the first thing… where you are.”

  Gordon scooped another spoonful of soup. “A man outside said this was Massachusetts…”

  “It is,” Neil nodded. “But the Massachusetts of your future.”

  The spoon froze on its way to his mouth. “My… my what?”

  Neil sighed. “Look, Gordon. We know you were at the Academy to try out the Implant before you came here.”

  Urgency pricked Gordon’s chest. “How do you know that?”

  “History,” Neil said, glancing at Doc again. “We knew you were going to be the first person to get one, and we knew when it was going to happen. So we went before that and… transported you.”

  Gordon pressed the spoon back into his bowl. “What? Transported me? What is that supposed to mean? And what the…”

  “Shut up, kid, and listen,” Doc growled.

  Neil hurried to continue before Gordon could protest. “You were the first person to get an Implant, but you weren’t the last. Everyone has them now, Gordon. Everyone.”

  Gordon looked
again from Neil’s big eyes to Doc’s dark ones. “Everyone? Like… everyone… on earth?”

  Neil’s narrow chin nudged his kerchief as he nodded. “It took time, but they finally got everyone Implanted. I was the last person to get one, three months ago.”

  “But how is that possible? Not everyone would need them…”

  “They’re not just for cancer anymore,” Doc cut in. “They were improved to cure almost everything.”

  Neil nodded. “Once the majority of people had them, once several world leaders were on board, including the President… it wasn’t hard to make them mandatory.”

  “Okay… so… everyone’s healthy now,” Gordon frowned. He started eating again, slowly. “What do you want me for?”

  “It’s not just a cure anymore.” Neil dropped his hands to his knees, and his shoulders sagged. “It’s a means of control. The Head of the Academy can kill anyone with the push of a button.”

  Gordon’s mind raced, trying to sort it all out. “But… that doesn’t make sense. You said not everyone needs them. If he shuts them off, so what?”

  “Well, he doesn’t just shut them off.”

  Doc interjected again. “They explode. Boom.” He pressed his fingertips together, then pulled his hands outward to demonstrate.

  “Doc. There’s no need to be dramatic.”

  “Right. Because you’re always so calm,” Doc scoffed, pulling paper and tobacco out of his pocket.

  Neil glared, but went back to his explanation. “The Head can kill anyone who gets in his way. He can trace us anywhere on earth, and kill us on a whim. The force field blocks signals, so they can’t get us as long as we’re in here, but if we leave, we’re as good as dead.”

  Gordon’s head felt fuzzy. He popped his knuckles slowly, focusing on each little release of tension in the joints. “I don’t understand… why do you need me?”

  “We didn’t need you, specifically,” Doc grunted. “This genius just…”

  “Doc, shut up,” Neil barked.

  A moment of silence filled the tent.

  “We needed someone without an Implant, Gordon,” Neil went on, slowly. “Someone to go in and destroy the control center, before the Academy destroys all of us.”