by Brian Savage
His hand shot out, closing over her hand, which was closed over the other end of the cord.
“Relax, Jack,” she said, looking into his eyes. “It won’t take too long. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
He clenched his jaw and searched her face. He came back to her eyes. The sparkling green. “Okay,” he said quietly, resigned. He began his four-count breathing, closing his eyes, and focusing on his mantra in his head. He let go of her hand and clasped it with the other across his chest.
“When the program starts, you might lose the ability to move for a little bit. You aren’t going to stop breathing or anything like that. More like a sleep paralysis of sorts.” One of his eyes shot open for a second, gaze resting on her. “It will be okay,” she said soothingly. He shut his eye and went back to reciting his mantra in his head.
He felt her hand on his neck, felt the cold tips of her fingers pressing on the skin and flesh that surrounded his implant. “The connection port is just beneath the skin on the underside of your implant,” she said, pressing harder and harder with her thumb, rocking it back and forth like a deep-tissue massage. Jack grimaced as she pushed harder and harder. He willed his body to relax, taking the breaths out of his mouth now instead of his nose. “Just a little more,” she said, pressing harder still…
“There!” she said, after what seemed like forever. Jack felt the pressure subside significantly, but also felt the uncomfortable position of the cord where it entered under his skin. It brought him back to when he first got his implant. Not pain, exactly, but the discomfort of the skin drawn tight, the itchiness of this new foreign body that separated the layers of tissue. He went back to breathing through his nose. Relaxing his face, from the grimace it had been screwed up in.
“Okay. I’m going to start running the program.” She paused and looked at him. Almost as if sensing her eyes on him, his eyes popped open. She held the black box in both her hands, clutched as if some form of a last hope for her. She’s waiting for some form of permission, he thought. He nodded to her.
She nodded back, and took a deep breath. Was it wrong not to tell him the risks? Was it wrong to try this, without knowing how far he had been assimilated already? The fact that he had willingly laid down, willingly let her jack into his implant, indicated that he had been far from the edge, but could she be sure? She brought up the holographic display. She checked the connection, and the readings on Jack’s vital signs. All seemed in order. She looked down again at his face. The strong jaw line, the stubble that had started to appear. The slight darkening around his eyes from lack of sleep. The messy, dirty-blonde hair. She gazed at him fondly. Her breath caught in her chest, her own heartbeat increasing.
Decidedly, and with a motion too quick to take back if her mind changed a moment later, she pressed her right thumb against the round, red, holographic button, superimposed by the word “Run.” A small, hollow bar appeared, which incrementally began filling with bright yellow light. Jack shifted where he lay, attempting to get more comfortable. The action startled her, causing her to gasp. Her first thought was that something was wrong. When he settled back down, she let the held breath out. Now it’s your turn to relax, she thought to herself.
The bar was about halfway full. She glanced between Jack and the bar, her heartrate climbing. The initial shock of the merge would be the hardest part. The security systems of the implant would activate all at once. A brutal digital war would erupt. She had seen these go badly. She looked at the calm Jack, measured breathing, hands folded. The calmness of his appearance brought her comfort. He was like a rock. A steady rock she was growing to rely on. She hoped this would work for him. She had no doubt that he was strong enough to endure it.
The bar neared the end. “Jack,” she said quickly, “when this starts, it may hurt at first. Just do your best to relax.”
Jack smirked at her without opening his eyes. “You keep telling me to relax and I won’t let you do it.” He opened his eyes, throwing her a quick wink, before closing them again.
She smiled to herself. The bar was a fraction of an inch away. It neared the end at a steady pace. “Here it comes,” she said as the gold bar flashed and disappeared, replaced by the word, “Initiated.”
Jack’s teeth clenched down as what felt like electrical shocks rent his head, dispersing down his spine, and throughout the rest of his body. He was glad his tongue had not been between his teeth when it started. He tasted what seemed like battery acid in his mouth. He felt like a human battery, life ebbing and being pulled to his implant and the connection to Aeralyn’s black box.
He felt like a trapped animal. His eyes flashed open as another jolt tightened all the muscles of his body. Aeralyn looked at him, concern written all over her face. Kill her. The single thought drifted up from the far recesses of his mind. No! he screamed to himself, as images flashed before his eyes. He felt his left hand raise and snake its way toward Aeralyn jerkily. He fought inside his mind to gain control, stopping the hand mid-air above him. He felt the pores across his body open, and sweat pour out, soaking his clothes.
He saw Aeralyn mouth what looked like, “Hold on,” as he kept his eyes on her. His hand made its way back to the other across his chest. He slammed his mind shut against the voice shouting for her death, the strange, alien voice that was his own, but which was not quite right. His jaw was still clenched, but he willed his lips to slide over his barred teeth, exerting as much control as he felt possible. His body didn’t shake or convulse anymore, but he felt something deep within his head rushing around, from point to point, something burning, something electric.
All at once, everything relaxed. His body went limp, his eyes flipped shut, and his hands fell to his sides, as one small point in his brain lit up.
Aeralyn reminded herself to breathe. She had watched Jack in the throes of the initial connection, trying to remember if hers had been quite so violent. She had been so surprised by the fist that had shot out, and so close to her face, that she hadn’t even flinched. She had to tell herself it wasn’t Jack who had tried to hit her. Her feelings wouldn’t have been able to take it if it had. She looked his sweat-soaked body up and down. He seemed asleep now. Lost to the outside world. She knew that, behind the eyelids, which moved in a way reminiscent of REM sleep, that was far from true. There was a program running now which could not be stopped, a path walked that could not be turned from. War was raging inside his mind.
She drew her knees up against her chest, hugging them tightly. More than anything, she wished Jack could hold her. Wished he could comfort her, even in this instance where he was the one who should need the comforting. She did not know much of Jack’s past, but from the way he carried himself beyond his years, she knew he was an old soul. Hopefully, she thought to herself, there wouldn’t be too much suffering for him to relive.
Chapter 13
Jack’s eyes shot open. What lay before him was a man on an operating table. The déjà vu was dizzying. He felt warmth against his fingertips. He looked down at the part of his black-gloved hands that could be seen above a gaping hole in the man’s leg. The man’s head shook back and forth, animalistic screams issuing from his open mouth, muffled ever so slightly by the clear plastic O2 mask strapped across his face.
Jack blinked hard, attempting to clear his vision. He knew where he was. Why was it so dim? He felt for the pulse he knew he would find, the femoral, deeper into the man’s leg. Once he found it, he compressed it with the fingertips of one hand, bringing the other blood-covered hand out to lift the tinted visor of his flight helmet. A man in camouflage scrubs was attaching the man to monitors. A man in the long white jacket of a doctor casually walked in and attempted to talk to the man who still screamed and cried.
Through the three layers of noise protection, he couldn’t hear the conversation. He frantically searched for the small switch that would enable the entrance of noise into his helmet but struggled to find it with his slippery fingers. Jack screamed out what he thought was, “B
leeding isn’t controlled here, I need a hand,” but got no response from the orderly, who was more intent on the monitor, or the doctor who had apparently opened up a “share your feelings talk show” by the man’s head.
Jack felt his hand slip from the pulsating artery beneath his fingertips. It rolled away and upward, retracting as arteries often did. Jack slammed his other hand back into the large gash that had once been the man’s leg. He searched and searched as the cavernous hole filled with blood. He screamed for help, he screamed for a tourniquet, for gauze, for anything. He felt the now weakening pulse again, for an instant, when something that felt like a giant hand yanked him back into utter darkness.
He screamed in anguish in the echoing darkness. The man had been a soldier on the front line. He had been shot seven or eight times; Jack couldn’t remember. He had remembered his death. Not on that operating table, but on the one the soldier was transferred to. Why didn’t they listen to me? he wondered to himself. Why couldn’t I make them listen?
Jack stumbled over something in the darkness. It felt soft, pliable. He took a large, blind step up and over whatever it was, turning back to it as he took a few steps backward. He stepped backward a third time, and found no ground beneath his foot. He fell, meeting the downward sloping ground with his ass, then his back, spinning and rolling further into the hole. He finally stopped rolling, face down in what seemed like the bottom. He felt a slight tinge of a headache and felt the wet trickle of blood down the side of his face. He blinked a few times before, all at once, light shone through darkness, and he was momentarily blinded by the sunshine.
He looked up, pushing himself to his elbows as he surveyed his surroundings. No. Not this. Not all over again. He looked to his right, knowing what he would find. The remnants of the destroyed gasser, still burned. Through the shattered ballistic windows, he could just make out what remained of the guys he had shared what seemed like a lifetime with. He pushed himself up to a standing position, shakily, stumbling forward as he reached out toward the wrecked vehicle.
They had hit an IED, a particularly nasty variation that created a thermite-like burning upon explosion. It had been the first mission where his team leader had allowed him to sit in the gunner’s hatch. The blast had thrown him clear of the fire, clear of the shrapnel, and had given him a headache and some lower leg fractures, but had saved his life. The tears streamed down his dirty and bloody face. He continued forward, ignoring the pain in his head and legs. He had to get to them. He had to save them. Do something. The pain he felt was a punch to his gut.
Other soldiers in his convoy ran up behind him, restraining him as he screamed the names of his fallen brothers. He fought weakly, little strength left in his bruised and battered body, as medics from different vehicles came to try and talk some sense into Jack, the now broken man. The arms around him began restricting tighter and tighter, and with a whoosh of air, he was back in the darkness, free from the pain in his legs and head, but not the emotional suffering brought on by the vivid memory.
Aeralyn’s hand rested on Jack’s forehead. His lips moved, forming unspoken words. His eyes, now open, moved back and forth rapidly. “Hang on, Jack,” she said aloud. She could feel the heat radiating off of him. The physiological effects of the process were lost to the tech-smart girl. Jack would know what’s happening, she thought to herself. He was an army medic, right? She pondered how little she knew of the man lying before her. In the short span of time that they had been thrown together by fate, she had seen much of his character as a man, yet learned little of what his life before her had been. She lifted her hand from his forehead and picked up the small black box. It showed two numbers in the form of percentages, one showing “68% Complete,” the other “3% Assimilations.” Three percent was a small number, but there was still 32 percent left to scan. It was better than she had originally hoped. She now hoped that the remaining 32 percent would be assimilation free.
She checked his vital signs. Heartrate in the 90s, respirations in the 20s, core temperature pushing 101 degrees Fahrenheit. She grabbed his hand, setting the small black box down beside his head. “If you can hear me, Jack, I’m here. It won’t be much longer.” She held his hand, hugging her legs closer with her other arm, and setting her chin down on top of her knees. She wanted him to come back. She felt so alone.
Jack was floating now. He felt some tension at his waist and beneath his legs, but no matter which way he reached, he felt nothing solid. Slowly, ever so minutely, he began to make out shapes. Glass windows, reflecting the dim outline of his body, suspended by a rope. He could see the riot helmet on his head in the dark windows. He could make out the ballistic vest, and rifle slung across his chest, strap tight so it would not interfere with any part of his harness or rig. To his left and right, he could make out the other officers of his team. The ones who joined him on the nightly raids. With sickening realization hitting him, he knew exactly where he was.
No. Please, no, not this night! his mind screamed.
“The Purges cannot stop,” he remembered the line from the current Corporate leader. The leader that had promised a war on socialism throughout every corner of the new country. Country. The Purges had been the last time anyone referred to the conglomerate of war-torn leftovers as a country. From the end of the Purges on, it was the Company, or the Corporation.
He was suddenly jerked to a stop. He looked down, knowing that he would find the matte red tile beneath his feet, dotted with the drops of rain that had tapered off. He watched as he unhooked his rig silently, and lined up in the line of wraiths.
They silently padded to the sliding-glass door. The curtains had been drawn across the floor-to-ceiling glass, to block out the drafts, but now they concealed something far colder. The eight men had one job to do. They were there to kill or capture socialists.
Jack tasted bile in his mouth. His mind screamed to stop, to not go in. He wished someone would trip, drive the butt stock of their weapon against the glass in their fall and wake those that slept inside. He knew, however, that those things wouldn’t happen. They paused; the first man slid the glass door open silently. Jack felt the all too familiar breeching “rock,” then the eight men moved as one, moving through the door, and room to room, clearing, sweeping, and securing. His four-man team took two small rooms straight across the dark living room and to the right. The other team moved down the hallway, securing a small bathroom, then moving to the large bedroom.
They breached the flimsy wooden door and found themselves in a small kid’s room. They moved quickly. Jack wept in his own mind, as he watched a movie of his life he thought he had forgotten. A small figure leapt from a bed, screaming for her mommy and daddy. Jack reached out to grab her. He knew what his trigger-happy teammates were capable of, and just wanted to get his body somewhere in the mix. Somewhere that would make them second-guess the shot he hoped would never come.
The shot came. The small figure crumbled to the floor at Jack’s feet. He knelt quickly, whipping off his aid bag as he rolled the small girl over. Jack slammed his mind’s eye shut, wishing to erase what filled his vision. The dead girl stared up at him from his arms. Her blood coated his hands. Rage and anguish consumed Jack.
“Shit, she scared me,” came the nonchalant, hollow excuse. An excuse not needed during the Purges. This was the first time Jack had been present during one of these accidents. The stories of them were a nightly occurrence during these tumultuous times. He vowed in his mind that he would never be present for another.
“Ripley, get back in formation!” his team leader ordered. Two more muffled shots, punctuating his command. Jack saw red. He turned to his number-one man as he stood. His short carbine dropped to the floor as he launched himself at the man. Jack’s fist broke on the man’s visor, but the repeated strikes eventually knocked it to the floor. Jack’s freshly broken hand demolished an eye socket and the man’s nose. Jack didn’t scream at the man. Didn’t rebuke him in the least. He simply gave in to the rage that made him yearn
to turn the man to mush. The other members of the team, finally realizing what was happening, pulled Jack from the man. The only one on the team Jack considered a friend pulled him bodily into the other room, at which point Jack stopped resisting.
“What the fuck are you doing, Ripley?” Jose half whispered, half yelled.
“Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what the fuck it is that we are doing?” Jack yelled, not caring about noise discipline any longer. “We came here to arrest a man on evidence flimsier than a traffic ticket, and we end up killing him and his whole family!” Jack’s voice broke. “He killed a little girl, for Christ’s sake!”
“Casualty of war,” Jose said sternly.
“Fuck your casualty of war bull shit, man.” Jack pushed Jose at the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. “A lame fucking excuse. Go tell that to the girl.” The rest of the team had gathered around. Some stared, stone faced, a couple laughed at what they considered Jack’s breaking point, and a few hung their heads ,hearing the truth in what was said.
Jack pushed through the seven other men. “Where are you going?” his team leader asked. Jack walked down the hallway to the front door of the apartment. He dropped his sidearm, vest, and helmet, like a trail of clothes to a shower. He pulled the badge off his belt, turned around, and chucked it at the feet of what had once been his team. He got hired at D.I.E. less than a year later. He took the position because he saw it as a way to watch the watchers, to guard the guards. He walked through the front door and back into the blackness of his mind, his heart now heavy from the lifetime of memories he was reliving.
