Implant

by J. Grace Pennington

  Neil was staring at him.

  “Wh-what?” Gordon stammered.

  Neil shook his head. He tried to speak, failed, and turned away.

  “Neil, what is it?” Gordon cried.

  Neil groped for his glasses, not speaking. He shouldn’t have been expected to speak after Doc’s death—but it was the way he didn’t speak that filled Gordon with an unnamed fear.

  He bent and swept up Neil’s glasses and handed them to him. Neil nodded, and put them on.

  “Neil.” Gordon tried to sound firm. “What is it? Something’s changed…”

  “No.” Neil’s bug eyes were wide with an expression Gordon couldn’t understand. “Nothing’s changed. Unless it’s—” He stopped and swallowed, then looked down at Doc’s dead body. He stared at the lifeless face, as if asking its permission for something.

  “Neil Crater!” Gordon cried, fear escalating into nausea. “What is it?”

  Neil turned to stare at him again, pain written on his thin, pale face.

  “He—he wanted to tell you himself, Gordon.”

  A scream was trapped in Gordon’s throat, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. What could possibly make Neil feel a loss for words?

  “It’s—he’s—” Neil took a shaky breath. “Ah, Gordon! You never asked how far into the future we brought you.”

  There was no reason this statement should have chilled Gordon, but it did. “No. Doc said not to ask questions.”

  “Doc didn’t want you to know.”

  Gordon tried to swallow. “How far?”

  For a few seconds, Neil couldn’t seem to get the words out. Then he answered. “Twenty-two years.”

  Twenty-two years. All this could happen in only twenty-two years? During his lifetime? How was it possible for the world to change in such a short time? How could—but Neil wasn’t finished. He had something else to say.

  “Didn’t you—ever wonder what Doc’s name was?”

  He couldn’t feel anything. His body, his mind, his heart were all numb. “Of course. He told me not to ask.” Insatiable curiosity combined with his fear. “What—what was it?”

  Neil’s eyes didn’t leave his. For a moment nothing happened, Gordon felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing but Neil’s huge blue eyes.

  “His name… was Doctor Gordon Harding.”

  Gordon Harding. That was his name.

  Twenty-two years, and Doc twenty-two years older than himself.

  The scream rose in his throat again. “No!”

  “Yes.”

  He couldn’t think. It wasn’t true.

  “Check his wallet. It’s in his inner jacket pocket.”

  Trembling, Gordon reached for Doc’s jacket, then stopped. His hands wouldn’t go further.

  Neil reached it for him. He pulled an old, worn brown leather wallet out of the inner pocket, opened it slowly, then handed it to Gordon, never taking his eyes from Gordon’s face.

  Gordon took it and looked.

  There was a medical record card. Dr. Gordon Harding. Born October 7th, 2021. B-cell chronic lymphocitic leukemia. Blood type—correct—immunization record—correct. Emergency contact—

  Yes it was. Dr. Marc Baumgartner.

  It was him.

  He turned mechanically to look at Doc’s dead face. That callous, hard doctor, practically responsible for the way the world was now—him?

  He stumbled to his feet and walked away, still clutching the wallet.

  “Gordon, wait!” Neil called.

  Gordon ignored him. He kept walking.

  *****

  There was no wind. The stillness seeped into everything, as though reality itself had died.

  Gordon sat, still as everything else, on a little hill outside the base, watching the huge, red, rising sun behind the Academy, still holding the old wallet in his hands. He felt not only numb, but dead, like everything around him.

  But he was dead. That had been him who died back at the base.

  He shuddered, and the motion made him queasy again.

  He closed his fingers around the wallet more tightly, but didn’t look down at it. For an instant he loosened his fingers, thinking he should be more respectful with Doc’s wallet, then he clenched his teeth and gripped it again, hard and angrily.

  It was his wallet.

  His mind kept drifting back to earlier, to the wee hours of the morning. Just a few hours ago. Him and Doc sitting in the tent, drinking, toasting, laughing. And now Doc was—

  Dead. Him. He clenched his teeth harder and gave the wallet another squeeze.

  “Gordon?”

  He didn’t answer Neil’s call.

  “Gordon?”

  He scooted himself around to face the other way, away from the Academy, where the sun’s rays were just starting to dispel the darkness.

  Neil’s footsteps came closer, from the direction of the rebel base. He didn’t call again, but he stopped a couple feet away from Gordon and stood still for a moment. Gordon didn’t look at him, but he could see him standing there in his peripheral vision. He turned his head so he couldn’t see him anymore.

  He heard a shuffling and a plop beside him.

  “I’m sorry I had to tell you like that, Gordon.”

  Gordon didn’t answer. His heart ached. He knew it hadn’t been Neil’s fault, but he blamed him anyway.

  “We were going to tell you after the Academy was destroyed—I didn’t want to tell you if it didn’t work, but he said we had to. It was his idea to use you.”

  Gordon felt like asking why, but the urge to keep silent was stronger.

  Neil told him anyway. “Didn’t you have a clue, Gordon? You were the first person ever to get an Implant. At least—you were going to be. Doc blamed himself for their success, and…”

  Gordon slapped his palm on the rocky surface beneath him and ground out the words. “Of course. That’s why it would be better if I just died now.”

  “What?”

  He jerked to face Neil and saw his bug eyes widen. “If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened. If I die now, this will all go away.”

  “We don’t know that,” Neil said. “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.”

  “Maybe not! Maybe they couldn’t have found anyone else! It doesn’t matter—everything I do just makes everything worse. At least if I died this wouldn’t be my fault.”

  “Does it really matter whose fault it is?” Neil asked, his face flushed but his tone calm.

  Gordon turned away.

  “The past is the past. Feeling guilty won’t change anything. Anyway, you can’t change the past. You can only change the future.”

  Gordon shook his head. Maybe some people could change the future. People like Neil, strong, smart, responsible, visionary. But not him.

  “Gordon,” Neil clapped a thin hand on his arm. “You want the impossible! You want freedom without responsibility, but you can’t have it. You can’t win a battle without fighting, and you can’t sit back in life and expect to have the assets without the liabilities. Because it doesn’t work that way, Gordon! If you won’t step up and take charge and fight… Gordon, are you listening to me?”

  Gordon pulled his arm away. Neil was wrong. All that talk of freedom and duty was for people like Neil, not him. His father hadn’t been able to handle it, and neither could he. Everyone would be better off if he just died.

  Neil sighed and they sat in silence for a few minutes. The sunlight continued to wash over the barren field, and Gordon found that he didn’t want it to rise. He would prefer that it stay where it was, keep things from going any further. If the day never began, nothing would ever get any worse.

  He heard Neil stand up and begin to speak with quiet authority. “I don’t know, Gordon. I think Doc was wrong about you. He said you—he—could do it, but you’re just not ready. You’ve got less than twenty-four hours left here, and you’re not going to be ready in that time. I only hope that when you go back you’ll thin
k a little bit about what I said. Will you at least do that?”

  If he lived long enough to go back, he was never doing anything again. He’d just shut himself up in his house for the remaining four or so years he had left.

  When he didn’t receive an answer, Neil gripped Gordon’s arm and yanked him to his feet. “Forget it. Just get underground with the rest of us.”

  He let go of Gordon’s arm, and Gordon looked into his face for just one moment. The frown made him look down again.

  They should never have brought him here. He wasn’t the man for the job. He wasn’t a man at all.

  And he never would be.

  Chapter Ten

  Gordon helped Neil get everyone underground. He hadn’t meant to do anything, but Neil’s look was so unbearable that he started helping the engineers pack up. He picked up whatever he was told, put it in a box, then went back to pick up something else.

  “I suppose you heard that your friend’s dead,” said Doug Goldman as he handed Gordon a roll of copper wire.

  Choking a bit, Gordon nodded. Doug hadn’t said it, but Gordon had a feeling he meant “good riddance.”

  He carried the wire over to a wooden crate, clenching his teeth. He couldn’t sort out his feelings about their mistrust. Part of him rebelled when he thought of Doc as his friend, Doc dying a noble death, Doc teaching him to stand up and be a man.

  The other part of him agreed with them. That was when he thought of Doc as himself, a cowardly, weak accomplice, guilty even when he tried not to be.

  His vision blurred.

  “Watch it!” someone called, just as his shoe caught the corner of a box and he lurched forward. He stumbled, trying to catch his balance, but landed on his knees as the roll of wire fell and tumbled away. Bitterness tingled through him as he watched machinery roll out of the overturned box. He couldn’t even do something that simple.

  “Here,” said a small voice.

  Gordon looked up to see a child standing in front of him. Dozens of freckles dotted the boy’s face, and his misty-blue eyes stared innocently into Gordon’s own. His hand gripped the wire, holding it out to Gordon.

  Jeffrey. Caleb’s son.

  He clenched his teeth tighter as his vision blurred with tears again. “Thanks.” He took the roll.

  The boy chased bits and pieces around the floor, gathering them up in his chubby arms and depositing them in the righted box.

  Gordon just watched for a second, then shook the moisture from his eyes and began picking up.

  He and the boy worked in silence for a moment until everything was put back. Then Gordon stood up, hoisted the box into his arms, and headed towards the stack of other crates at the opposite wall.

  Jeffrey fell into step beside him.

  “Weren’t you my daddy’s friend?”

  Gordon swallowed. Was he? “Sure,” was all he could bring himself to say.

  “I miss my daddy. Does your daddy work here?”

  An intense fatigue weighed Gordon down. “No.”

  “Does your mommy work here? My mommy does.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  Unshed tears burned his eyes. “Yes.”

  He bent down to deposit the crate with the rest of them, and looked down at the little boy. Jeffrey’s face was molded into a simple frown. “I’m sorry.”

  Gordon swallowed harder and looked away. “Me too.”

  He wasn’t looking when the child wrapped chubby arms around his knees, but the sensation made the tears release from his eyes.

  Hadn’t he made a promise to himself that Caleb wouldn’t die in vain? Hadn’t he said he’d do everything he could to help?

  “Jeffrey! Jeffrey, where are you?”

  “Coming!” called the boy, and ran off in the direction of his mother’s voice.

  Gordon stared after him, emotion pulsing through his body like electric shocks. Was he really going to let Ray—Caleb—even Doc—all of those who’d died believing in him—was he really going to let their efforts be for nothing?

  You’ll only make things worse.

  For once he gripped the inner voice and shoved it away, forcefully, violently.

  How much worse could things really get, anyway?

  *****

  Neil was commanding a dozen other scientists in the lab when Gordon flung the doors open. He didn’t knock; he didn’t apologize for bursting in when Neil looked up.

  “I changed my mind.”

  Neil furrowed his brows and opened his mouth, then closed it again. He turned to the others, who had all stopped gathering up equipment to see what was going on. “Back to work. We’re evacuating within the hour.”

  Pinching Gordon’s shoulder with his long fingers, Neil pushed him back out and into the hallway, slamming the doors shut behind them.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Gordon shook his head and took a deep breath. “I changed my mind. I’m going to do it.”

  Neil raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  Gordon just shook his head again.

  Neil crossed his arms and stared at Gordon; looked him straight in the eyes for several seconds.

  Gordon didn’t flinch.

  Still staring, Neil asked, “Are you positive?”

  “Neil,” Gordon said. “I’m certain.”

  After a moment, Neil finally nodded. “All right. I’m going to try trusting you again.” He sighed as he looked away from Gordon’s eyes. “You looked like Doc there for a moment.”

  Gordon smiled a little.

  “Let’s get ready,” Neil said. “You’ve only got a little more than twelve hours left. We’d better make good use of it.

  Clapping an arm around Gordon’s shoulders, Neil led him back in the lab to get fitted for his mission.

  *****

  It was dark when he reached the Academy, and the moon already hung low in the sky. Even without the sun the long walk in the goon disguise Neil had provided made him hot and sweaty. The uniform came from the body of the goon who’d killed Doc. The man Gordon had killed.

  He wasn’t sure he liked that, but he did his best to ignore it.

  Neil had made him promise to take it easy on the walk to the Academy. Above all, he must not try to hurry too much. He needed to save every ounce of energy for the task ahead.

  He tapped his pockets as he approached the shimmering blue barrier. Neil had placed the firing sequence in one, and the rigged detonator in the other.

  “It’s simple,” Neil had instructed. “You unroll this,” gesturing to a long, wrapped wire contraption, “along a wall somewhere on the upper floor of the Control Center. Flip this switch,” pointing to a switch on a metal box at one end, “then use the detonator from anywhere in the building. You’ll have four minutes to get out.”

  It was simple. Gordon tried not to think of all the workers who would be killed by the blast. Maybe he could warn a few on his way out—but either way, he had to do this.

  He reached his hand under his shirt to make sure the silicone glove was still there. Neil had tied it around his chest with strips of cloth, so tightly it didn’t make a bulge. He only had to put it on when he reached the Control Center door, then touch the “no smoking” symbol, the way Dagny Dalton had, and lay his hand on the panel that appeared. Then he’d be in.

  In theory.

  With a last look back at the glowing blue dome of the rebel base, he took a deep breath and walked through the shield.

  The building Doc had showed him just a few days before was directly ahead.

  It seemed so long ago.

  Gritting his teeth, he darted from shadow to shadow until he reached the old door. He opened it, jumped in, and closed the door behind him.

  He turned into the room and found the dark face of a goon confronting him.

  Goosebumps flickered over his body, but he forced himself not to jump. He willed his facial muscles to keep still.

  The goon just stared at him, black briefcase in his
hand.

  Gordon cleared his throat and tried to speak casually. “Lester asked me to find an old drive for him.” It was the most generic thing he could come up with. He prayed that someone named Lester worked here. Why had he given his father’s name? Why couldn’t he have just said “Bill” or “Steve”?

  “Lester?” The man’s eyebrows tilted further down.

  “He’s new,” Gordon explained.

  The man shrugged and pushed past Gordon out the door.

  As the latch clicked, Gordon let out a long breath and relaxed, trembling.

  No. He had to be strong.

  He stepped forward and pushed the table under the old ventilation shaft, then climbed up on it. The adrenaline from his scare a moment before still pumped through him.

  “Calm down,” he whispered. “Don’t be a baby.” He half smiled, and pulled the cold, metal cover off the shaft. He set it on the table carefully, then put both hands inside and hoisted himself up.

  Once inside the dirty shaft, panic hit him, sending the adrenaline coursing again. Could he remember Doc’s directions?

  Maybe not, but he could remember his own motions. He’d gone straight—then turned—yes, turned again—straight—

  Light. He slipped over the slimy pipes, not minding their grime or the stench now. Yes, there, the opening into the connecting corridor. He peered out and saw the door to the Control Center far at the other end.

  He took a deep breath, felt for the glove one last time, then touched the long, round pipe outside the shaft. The passage below was empty and dark enough that he felt safe about blending in. But could he really climb all that way? Already his heart pounded too fast, and his breathing was shallow and uneven.

  No. He had no time to doubt.

  Clutching the pipe with both hands, he slid out of the shaft.

  He inched forward, then tried wrapping his legs around the pipe. He started to slip and he gripped his knees to the rusty metal. He’d never make it all the way across the corridor like that.

  He pulled his legs back up, slowly, and tried propping the toes of his boots on top of the pipe. He inched forward, using his fingers to pull him along and his boots to keep balance behind.

  That seemed to work.

  But it was a long way to the door.

  Clenching his teeth, he slid forward. One inch at a time—ignoring his tired arms. One inch at a time. He’d get there. Move, Gordon. Keep going. That’s it. Another slide forward. You’re doing fine. Already far from the shaft. You can’t go back now. Just keep moving, don’t stop. Don’t worry about being tired, you can make it. This is your only chance. Don’t worry. Keep going—