The Harvested (The Permutation Archives Book 1)

by Kindra Sowder

  Ryder and the other soldier moved to stand on either side of the metal slab as Doctor Aserov walked toward me. She had picked up a packet of what looked like adhesive electrodes, opening the package as she came closer.

  “Please remove the t-shirt so I can place these electrodes in the proper positions,” she demanded. I would have preferred her to ask me, but I wasn’t going to disobey her at that point. Being at their mercy made it impossible to control how far they would take things.

  I removed my white t-shirt with one gesture and heard Ryder clear his throat, obviously uncomfortable. Choosing to ignore it, Doctor Aserov placed four electrodes on my skin. She put two of them a few inches below my collarbones and the others on my lower ribs. There were no wires, and my best deduction was that they transmitted the readings wirelessly. I just couldn’t see what received the signals. The doctor tapped the computer screen and in the upper right-hand corner I saw the familiar line of the EKG moving up and down with each heartbeat, the beeping ringing softly in my ears. It was steady and rhythmic. No hint of panic. I hadn’t known that before, but it seemed the electrodes also tracked my blood pressure and respiration, which was sitting at a perfect one hundred percent. As far as that was concerned, I was in perfect health.

  The doctor looked back to me and said, “Your blood work came back, and all of your levels were perfect. Of course, in all of our subjects, there has only been one oddity.” She stopped lecturing and watched the screen to her left closely. I looked at the screen as well, but nothing had changed. Now I was extremely curious about what they could have seen in my blood. Curious as well as terrified. The combination of emotions wasn’t one I experienced often. I was already shaking as I sat there on the cold metal. I didn’t want to seem cheeky, but the question was practically choking me.

  “What did you see?” I asked tentatively. My body stiffened as soon as the words left my throat. I was expecting some backlash, but all Doctor Aserov did was take a nervous glance at me and then tapped the screen. A video began to stream, and my mouth practically dropped open as the beeping coming from the speakers grew quicker. All I could do was stare at it in disbelief. My mouth was now bone dry as if I had eaten cotton and sweat broke out over my skin for the second time in the last five minutes.

  I could see my bright red blood cells in startling detail as they floated, suspended on the screen, but there was something off about them. At first glance, they looked perfectly normal, but once you concentrated on them, you could see small patches of blue on them that glowed slightly under the light of the microscope they used to magnify them. In that instant, I knew exactly what these doctors hypothesized about these parts of our blood. I was sure they felt that it was another marker of our powers. Or where they lived within us. I wasn’t so certain about the latter, but I knew it had to mean something.

  “Everything about your blood is normal except for this,” she stated, pointing at a small patch of blue on one of my blood cells. Another question was lingering inside of me as I looked at the screen where her finger was pointing.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked. Before I had felt as if I couldn’t ask questions, but when nothing happened the first time, I felt just brazen enough to ask another probing query. I could see her brow furrow, the light from the computer reflecting off her glasses so I couldn’t see her eyes, and she seemed to refuse to look at me. She then chose to look me directly in the eyes. I met her gaze without even flinching. Nothing else but her answer was important.

  “It’s your body, Mila. You should know what is happening inside of it. This information is also vital to your cooperation. The more you know about our progress, the more you will be willing to help us solve this.”

  She made it sound as if it was a problem that they had trouble deciphering. Like it was a calculus equation. As my eyes met hers, I could see all the information behind them that she was refusing to tell me. She was still hiding more than she would admit, which caused my anxiety to spike. The beeping from my EKG was coming faster as my breathing sped. We were obviously a problem, but why? The desperation I had felt even before now was creeping back in, leaching through my entire body and causing panic to become a solid pit in my stomach. It was too hot in the room now, and I was happy I was sitting down. The room began to spin just slightly, but righted itself once I took a deep and steadying breath.

  “Soon, we are going to need to gather some tissue samples to check for any other possible anomalies, and then we will move to testing the limits of your power.”

  She seemed to be ignoring the frantic beeping coming from the monitor as my heart continued to race. Nothing she was saying was reassuring. She was talking about taking even more pieces of me for the sole purpose of dissecting my power and, to some extent, who I was. I didn’t want to let them but knew I no longer had a choice. Depending on what tissues they wanted, she was talking minor surgeries and biopsies. The question must have been evident on my face because she answered it without me having to say a word.

  “We won’t be doing many of them. It’s just some tissues that, based on your abilities, we feel need further examination.”

  She snatched a pair of purple nitrile gloves from a box and snapped them on as she said it, making me think they were taking them now. Relief flooded through me when she picked up a pack of smaller electrodes from the drawer instead of a scalpel. They had cables attached to them, unlike the ones plastered to my chest.

  She reached over to roll a piece of equipment to where I was sitting. The machine had a bright and flat surface on its top with a few buttons on the front. I wasn’t sure what the machine was for, but I had a strong feeling it was important to whatever it was they were doing there. I had never seen one, and confusion blossomed within me again. That feeling was becoming an all too frequent occurrence.

  “If you could please place your hand on the machine, we’re going to be taking your hand print for identification.”

  I did as she asked and set my palm on its glass surface. It was cold and sent a small shiver up my spine. A red light started at the bottom of the glass surface and ran up toward the top three times before making a slight trilling sound to signal it had finished its analysis. My handprint appeared on the screen and joined all the other information in their database.

  She looked at me approvingly and asked me to remove my hand from the machine. She began to remove the electrodes with the long cords from the pack in her hands and place them on my forehead along my hairline. They were sticky with adhesive, and I knew I would have to scrub the stuff off my skin once I was back within the confines of my cabin. Removing it was going to take a lot of elbow grease.

  The doctor spun to hook the ends of the cords to a port on the computer’s platform, the readings springing to life once there was a connection. I didn’t even bother to look at the screen. My eyes were locked on the good doctor before me, watching her as she worked. My mind was spinning from all the new information given, and I was even more confused than I had ever been. She worked for the government but seemed as if she was trying to be helpful. I wasn’t sure what she wanted, but I was sure I would be finding out soon enough. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be too late.

  Chapter 13

  It turned out everything Doctor Aserov had done in the examination room was a pre-op analysis. I would be getting my biopsies done as soon as it was over and my blood work came back. A vast part of me was terrified. I had scarcely ever been sick, let alone had surgery of any kind. I didn’t even know what kind of biopsies they needed. She did say that it would have something to do with the power each of us possessed, but that was all.

  I began to think as I sat on the metal table, waiting. An IV jutted from my arm and was pinching underneath my skin, a bag of fluids hooked up to the long tube and flowing into my body. I was beginning to get used to the fluids. It seemed I received them every single time I saw the good doctor—as if it were starting to become a part of our routine.

  Not only did I have the fluids
, but I was getting IV antibiotics to stop any infection that could set in after the procedure. That didn’t help my frayed nerves. My legs were practically jumping, and I shook as I gripped the edges of the examination table as tightly as my body would allow. It was beginning to hurt, but I didn’t dare let go. It was the only thing keeping me stable. I wasn’t ready. At that moment, I only wished that I could fast forward through it or give them the samples they wanted without all the difficulty.

  Oh, if only.

  The only people left in the room with me were Ryder and the other soldier, whose name I had never known but possibly would’ve forgotten. I needed to stand and walk around, but I knew they wouldn’t allow that. When undergoing an examination, I had to remain seated or risk being shot with the large guns the two strapping men were gripping, especially since the other looked to have an itchy trigger finger. I wanted to avoid that at all costs—almost as badly as I wanted to get out of the room and run away as fast and as far as my legs would carry me. Of course, even if I could make it past the soldiers and their guns, I could never make it past the aura blocking me in.

  I looked around the room, trying to focus on something else besides the impending procedure. I was attempting to decipher a label when the glass doors slid open, and Doctor Aserov walked in holding a syringe, heels clicking on the tiled floor. My eyes went wide at the sight of it, and she smiled at me in a comforting manner.

  “Don’t worry, Mila. This isn’t Paralisix. This will just make you a little tired and ready you for the procedure.” Her tone of voice was reassuring, like she had practiced saying those words in the mirror.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded, giving myself over to the large needle in her hand. The syringe looked menacing, but I couldn’t look away from it as she walked up to me, gloved hands holding it up into the light and checking for air bubbles. With two purple fingers, she flicked the plastic part of the syringe. The slight tapping sound almost made me flinch, causing my racing heart began to beat even faster. I didn’t want it, but what could I do? I couldn’t stop it. I knew without being told that it was either cooperate or die. This I knew without anyone having to say it. The soldiers with guns at my back were clue enough.

  She stopped in front of me and slipped the needle into the plastic reservoir right above the IV injection site. I watched as it merged with the fluids and through the IV flowing into my arm. In a matter of seconds, I was feeling its effects.

  The room began to sway, and a feeling of disconnect began to wash over me. I had to lay down on the metal table just to feel some equilibrium, the coolness of the metal feeling refreshing against my cheek. My eyelids began to feel heavy, and I was fighting with all I could to keep them open, but after a moment of trying, I couldn’t any longer. I closed my eyes and let the blackness swallow me whole.

  I didn’t dream. It was like the medication she had given me had stopped my subconscious from working, which was all right. The last dream I remembered had been so disturbing that I was perfectly content with never dreaming again. The world was blissfully dark, and I felt as if I was floating away like a balloon someone had let go—floating aimlessly in the atmosphere, unaware of what was happening.

  Then there was a throbbing in my head that I couldn’t ignore, and the darkness began to spit me out. The more the light took over, the more intense discomfort began to throb in my wrist. The light was bright, only slightly dimmed to a red color by my eyelids. I squeezed them even tighter as some of the light tried to trespass under them, causing searing pain to slice through my head.

  I could still feel the IV needle pinching underneath my skin, and there was the feel of a hefty and thick blanket covering me. It was too warm, and the sheets on what I assumed was a mattress made of memory foam were soft and smooth like satin, contrasting sharply against the blanket. The feeling of disconnect from before was a distant memory, but there was still a lingering sense of vertigo from the medication.

  I didn’t dare open my eyes for fear that the world was spinning and I would fall. As far as anyone knew, I was still sleeping and dreaming. The beeping of the EKG was a distant sound, and the electrodes placed on my chest and forehead were uncomfortable. The beeping was still steady and rhythmic as I attempted to keep myself as calm as possible, despite the pain that was beginning to grow in severity.

  “Mila?” Doctor Aserov said my name. “Mila, are you in any pain?” From the tone of her voice, it seemed as if she noticed something in my readings on the screen that I couldn’t see with my eyes closed.

  I slowly opened them and looked at her. There was a crown of light around her, and I had to squint past it to be able to see her clearly. The light around her was nearly blinding. I raised my hand to try to block some of it out. It didn’t work. The white walls were burning my retinas, and I had a feeling there was a fluorescent light in the room somewhere that was on, making the sensation of aura-like light assaulting my eyes.

  As if she’d heard my thoughts, she turned and walked away for a few seconds, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. The lights dimmed to the cool blue that also lined the floor and ceiling, causing a sigh of relief to pass from between my lips.

  While the light was no longer a problem, the pain in my head was still nearly debilitating. I would say it was one hundred times worse than a migraine, and even that was putting it lightly. I had only had one in the entirety of my life, so I didn’t have much to use as a reference. Pain shot up from the wrist I had rested on the bed all the way up to my shoulder, causing numbness and tingling in my hand.

  She walked back to the side of my bed as I dropped my hand down from my eyes, asking me about any pain again. She requested I rate it on a scale of one to ten, just like when we had first met.

  Through a scratchy and dry throat, I said, “The scale doesn’t do it any justice.” I sounded as if I had a frog in my throat, and I was beginning to think a tube of some kind had been forced down my throat at some point during the procedure. They could’ve done anything they wanted to me, and I wouldn’t have known about it. That was an unsettling thought.

  The doctor nodded, the blue light reflecting off her glasses so I couldn’t see her amber eyes.

  She took a step to the computer screen, tapping on it with a perfectly manicured fingernail. The familiar whoosh of the depositing system used to move medications into a room without the doctor having to leave moved through the room. I heard her heels clicking, the airlock opening, and her walking toward the bed. I watched as she snapped on those purple gloves and opened a package with a new syringe in it. The liquid inside of it was blue, and it was one I had never seen.

  “This kind of pain is normal after your biopsies and the repair process. This drug I am about to give you will help to ease that,” she assured me, her voice lowered as if she knew the boom of it would only increase my pain.

  She injected the blue liquid into the IV reservoir, and within minutes the pain began to ebb away. During those few minutes, she checked my wrist. I watched her as she checked for signs of infection, which included redness, swelling, and warmth. The incision started at the base of the palm of my hand and ran nearly two inches down. The stitches were clear and barely noticeable, but I could feel stretching if I moved my wrist a certain way.

  Once she deemed that there was no risk to the incision, she looked to me and leaned in, checking my right eye. She reached up with her gloved hand and pulled the lower lid down so she could see whatever it was they had done there. I was sure I would be getting an explanation soon, so I let her do her examination without question. As she backed away from me, she began to speak.

  “We took three biopsies. The first was from your corpus callosum. That is the bundles of nerves that join the right and left hemispheres of your brain so they can communicate. The second was a nerve biopsy from the median nerve in your wrist. It runs from your shoulder all the way into your thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers. The last we took was a muscle biopsy from the muscle right below, so we wouldn’t have to ma
ke another incision.”

  I was happy for the explanation, as well as the anatomy lesson.

  She took a breath in. “We were able to get the brain biopsy by taking a direct route to the corpus callosum in the area between your eye and the caruncula. That is the reason for your headache. Any nerve pain in your wrist is caused by the samples we took, as well. This pain will begin to ease once the serum we developed regrows nerve tissues as not to compromise the nerves when we take a nerve biopsy. But you may still have some headaches and nerve pain on and off for a few days.”

  It was a lot to take in. I still didn’t like the thought of it, regardless of anything she had just told me. At that point, I was already tired of being a lab rat and being poked and prodded, as well as being experimented on in just the same way. I was trying to keep my body from responding to the panic rising in me, but the readings on the computer screen rose slightly, making a concerned look cross Doctor Aserov’s striking features.

  “I know this is stressful, but you need to remain calm for the corpus callosum to regrow properly.” She touched my shoulder tenderly as if I would break, or as if she understood what I was going through.

  Doubt moved into my mind. It felt more like I was at the breaking point than understood in any capacity, so I took the look in her eyes and her touch with a grain of salt. I wasn’t in any pain, but I was still in a foul mood.

  I had known all of it was bad news, but I hadn’t realized it would be that bad. We were supposed to trust in our government, but we were all afraid of them, and that fear was growing with each procedure and test they decided was necessary. Along with that fear also came a resistance and an urge to fight back that I had to choke down each time they injected me with some mystery formula.

  “And how do you know how I feel?” I snapped at her. I couldn’t help myself. It came out of me as if I had no filter.