Fierce Reads

by Ann Aguirre

  But that didn’t make him interested in the girl.

  She cleared her throat and he looked up, dropping the file on the table.

  “Mr. Watson thinks I would be a good candidate,” she told him.

  He had to hand it to Watson. At least all the girls the man had recruited for the trials were lookers. This girl—Lucy, according to her file—could have been in pictures in a few more years with her wavy blond hair and fair skin. Right now she looked too young, too innocent, for Hollywood. That was the other thing Watson had a knack for—picking the gullible ones who believed it was their duty to help the poor boys overseas. Of course, Watson was working from a list of the survivors of those recently killed in action, so maybe he wasn’t all that brilliant, but at least he brought back pretty girls.

  Faces like hers would sell this program to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the country. People wouldn’t bat an eye at putting their fate in the hands of a sweet young girl from—he glanced at the file again—Illinois. It would make the transition simpler—for everyone.

  “I think Mr. Watson is right,” Harold said. He flashed her a brilliant smile as a young man entered the room. Harold’s eyes flicked from Joshua to Lucy, waiting for a reaction from either of them. This was the variable no one wanted to talk about, but it was the one Harold felt would become more important than most. They needed these girls to be chaste. No man was going to allow his wife to work full-time once this war was over, so it was imperative that these candidates not be involved in romantic entanglements. It would make things easier for everyone.

  Joshua was a good-looking kid, broad shouldered and dark haired, and nothing about his outward appearance gave away the 4-F Harold had discovered in his file. Then again Joshua came from money and Harold knew how easy it was to purchase a rejection from service. But Lucy barely gave the boy a second glance, although when Harold looked closer he saw her hands were balled into fists in her lap.

  “Sir,” Joshua said, handing him a new file. “Dr. Lucas sent this your way. He’s ready to open up the next study.”

  “Thank you,” he said, nodding to the door to indicate Joshua was dismissed. As the boy passed Lucy, he smiled but she looked away, a frown sagging over her fair features, and Joshua left the room with heat burning on his cheeks.

  “May I speak frankly?” Lucy asked.

  Harold leaned back in his leather desk chair and pressed his fingertips together. “Of course.”

  “I don’t know why I’m here, but I do know that men are dying every second you waste reading my file.”

  Sass, Harold thought. Not a good sign at all. Lucas had said they needed a particular kind of girl, obedient girls who would do as they were told, but Harold Patton had to disagree. What they needed were girls like Lucy Price. They needed fighters.

  “There’s a trial beginning this afternoon,” he said. “My secretary will show you to the laboratory.”

  * * *

  A pretty nurse led Lucy to the laboratory. Half of the room had been converted to a makeshift exam area complete with a cold steel table; a tray of frightening instruments gleamed beside it. The rest looked like the lair of a mad scientist in a picture show. Beakers and microscopes next to a panel, covered with blinking buttons that stretched the length of the room. It was cold inside the sterile facility, and Lucy shivered in the thin cotton gown she’d been given for the procedure.

  This place felt removed from reality, not quite of the world Lucy had lived in for the past sixteen years, and as she realized this, she wondered again whether she’d made a mistake in agreeing to be part of the project. Dr. Lucas appeared beside her before she could let this thought get too far.

  “Miss Price.” He flourished an arm toward the exam table and Lucy stepped toward it. Her body rebelled against her, slowing her down, until each step was smaller than the last.

  “She’s nervous,” the nurse said in a tone usually reserved for small children. She looped an arm through Lucy’s and guided her to the table.

  The steel was as cold as it looked, numbing her skin as she lay back against it.

  “B-b-blanket?” she asked through chattering teeth.

  “I’m sorry, dear.” The nurse patted her hand, shaking her head. “We’ll need you uncovered for the procedure.”

  “Will I be asleep?” Lucy shut her eyes, remembering having her tonsils removed. They’d given her a shot and she’d woken later with a sore throat and fuzzy memories of strange and vivid dreams.

  “It will be like sleep,” Dr. Lucas said, coming into view above her.

  A leather strap buckled over her wrist and Lucy’s eyes flew open in surprise.

  “Nothing to worry about. Just a safety precaution,” the doctor assured her.

  But Lucy couldn’t help but worry. She wasn’t sedated yet and a fourth strap was being fastened over her left ankle. She flexed her arms, testing the strength of the leather and found she could do little more than move her fingers.

  “Nurse,” the doctor said in a firm tone, and a moment later Lucy felt the prick of a needle in her arm. The effect was instantaneous. Her head lolled to the side and she couldn’t pick it back up to see what they were doing now. It was too heavy, and besides she didn’t want to. Not really. Their hands were on her body, but it felt nice. Fingernails grazed over her bare skin. She was colder than she had been a moment before, but she didn’t mind.

  “What was that?” she asked in a dreamy voice. She wanted more of it.

  “A new drug, approved for use in this project,” the doctor said. “Nurse, take note of the dosage we used and that the candidate seems exceptionally euphoric.”

  The nurse giggled at this, and Lucy heard the buttons on her gown unsnap. A cool breeze tickled over her. Her eyes wandered overhead, her vision blurring and refocusing, until they landed on a clear pane of glass. A group of men were huddled in an observation deck, watching the procedure from above. Lucy smiled at them.

  “You’re going to feel a few pricks now,” the doctor said, and a second later there was a brief pinch on her chest, followed by one on her stomach and one on her hip.

  A tremor rippled through her muscles and she convulsed on the table, held in place by the restraints. The doctor pressed a hand to her bare stomach so that she couldn’t arch into the air.

  She tried to breathe, gasping for air, but not catching any. Her lungs were frozen, turned to stone in her chest, weighing her down and suffocating her.

  The doctor watched her with interest. “Note the violence of the muscle spasms in this case. I’d say that’s very promising … if she survives the procedure.”

  His words jumbled in Lucy’s head, refusing to make sense even as they cracked the glossy coat of calm the drugs had encased her in. What was happening to her muscles? And what did he mean by survive? But her own lips had stopped working, held captive by the pain searing through her muscles. The drugs weren’t working to keep it away, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind. She couldn’t bring herself to want to fight the restraints holding her to the table even as her body bucked against them. Lucy’s eyes rolled back and up to the crowd of men watching from overhead. Some had begun to take notes. One shifted on his heels and looked away as her eyes brushed past his. But then her gaze met with a young man’s, surely not much older than herself, and locked. She’d seen him before on the compound. He had stood out then because a young man his age not wearing a uniform always stood out to her. That day the sight of him had turned her stomach. How dare he not enlist? How dare he walk by her when her brother never would?

  But today his eyes were soft, concerned, as they met hers. The others had looked past her or away from her. He looked at her. And even through the haze she realized he was the only person here who had ever truly seen her.

  * * *

  Joshua couldn’t turn away from the force of the girl’s gaze. He wanted to look at his chart and find her name, but he didn’t dare turn away from her. Whatever was happening to her body clearly scared her, despite Lucas’s ass
urance to Joshua that the new drug Valpron would make the subjects oblivious to the physical effects of the trial. Like many of the others Joshua would have given his own mother’s life to end this war. He could no longer count on both hands how many friends he’d lost in the war.

  But something about the girl’s eyes made him want to sweep her away from this place. It made him question every reason he’d come to believe in the Cypress Project.

  Joshua had thought Dr. Lucas was joking when he told him to pack up his things two weeks into the school year. The professor barely knew him, although he’d been instrumental in bringing Joshua into Yale early. Something about his entrance exams had caught the man’s eye, and from the moment Joshua arrived on campus Lucas had been watching him, quizzing him on some of the recent theoretical developments in physics. The whole thing had been unnerving for the freshman, but once Lucas had revealed his ideas and some background about the project he’d written Joshua of earlier in the summer, Joshua was entranced. There had been little hesitation on his part when he’d realized Lucas’s offer was genuine. Yale could wait for Joshua to help end the war.

  More than once it occurred to him that his father might have been right. Joshua could have been off lying in the mud in France, bleeding to death. Instead he was in Los Angeles using his brains to end the war. And what would his father say then?

  And then he’d seen the girl on that table. She’d been cold to him in Patton’s office, unwilling to give him so much as a smile, and Joshua knew why. He knew what he must look like—a strapping boy of eighteen in khakis and a button-down. She’d noticed the absence of a uniform, and he’d felt shame over it. Shame he thought he’d left behind him in New Haven. And just like that he’d gone from being a man doing important work to being a rejected boy holding a 4-F file. Joshua had hated her almost as much as he hated himself in that moment.

  But all that changed as he watched Lucas inject her. A few of the men—all business types who were financing the project—had elbowed Joshua when the nurse undressed the girl, but he’d kept his eyes on her face until she began to fight the serum coursing through her. Then he’d seen her breasts heave into the air as her back arched. He’d noticed how long her legs were as they spasmed and kicked against the cuffs that bound her. But even then he’d watched objectively. He had remained a scientist, taking notes about the effect of each injection, for Lucas to use later in his reports.

  Until he looked into her eyes.

  Fear flashed through them, counteracted easily by the Valpron Lucas had administered before the procedure began, but in that split second something else had reflected from them: curiosity. She didn’t know what was happening to her and if she had been able to ask Joshua in that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to tell her, either.

  He could give her the canned pitch they used for the investors or the suits from the bureaucratic side of the War Department: that the serums isolated particular genetic abilities and enhanced them. As Lucas had explained it to him, it was like giving someone better-than-perfect vision and reflexes. Not only would candidates be able to see the most essential components of the universe around them, best described as threads that made up all of matter, they would be able to manipulate these threads as well. The entire Cypress Project depended on it.

  But Joshua knew that wouldn’t answer the girl’s questions, because it was about so much more than that. For the first time Joshua himself wondered what was really happening. There was a difference between theory and application. Watching her endure the serums showed him that, which led him to the same inevitable question: What would happen? If they were successful at harvesting and manipulating the material that comprised time and matter, how would that be used to end the war?

  Those answers were classified, well beyond his level of security clearance.

  But there was one thing that wasn’t: the name of the girl.

  * * *

  She was being watched. They hadn’t bothered to hide it from her. There was a window in her quarters where scientists observed her sleep and dress. Nurses escorted her to every meal and meeting. Lucy’s memory of the procedure was hazy at best, and now she wasn’t sure what to expect. They certainly expected something from her, but she didn’t feel any different. The mirror still reflected the blond waves and a freckled nose that she’d had every day of her life. On the outside there was no change.

  At first she didn’t think there was a change on the inside either. She was accustomed to questioning things, but since the procedure she’d been plagued by strange lapses in her memory. Every once in a while the light in the room seemed to catch like fabric on a nail, drawing her attention to the spot only to discover nothing amiss.

  A nurse left her in a small waiting room, not unlike her doctor’s back home, but there were no charts or posters about health on the wall. Everything was bare-bones, the room stripped down to an exam table and two chairs. She tried not to think about the cinder-block walls and lack of windows.

  There was a knock at the door and she called out that she was ready. In truth, she hadn’t known whether or not to get undressed. She had no idea why she was here and she wasn’t going to hesitate now. Lucy wanted answers to all the questions tumbling around her head.

  But when the door opened it was a young man. Lucy noted his strong, smooth jawline. He was handsome, but young. The kind of man who would only get better looking with time. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t quite place where she had seen him until she realized that was an answer in and of itself. A memory of his eyes watching over her blurred through her mind.

  Lucy’s hands twisted in her lap. They were slick with sweat and she hoped the man wouldn’t try to offer his hand in introduction.

  “Miss Price, I hope you haven’t been waiting for long,” he said, dropping into the other chair.

  “I haven’t,” Lucy assured him. “I wasn’t sure if I was to be examined again. I should have asked. Do you need me to get undressed? Has the procedure worked? When will they stop watching me?”

  The man blinked at the onslaught of questions, then smiled. “I was about to ask if you had any questions, but I see that’s unnecessary.”

  “I’m sorry. I tend to bottle them all up until they spill out … Doctor.” She tacked on the title as an afterthought, although she stole a shy glance at him when she did.

  “I’m not a doctor,” he said in a rush. “I’m Doctor Lucas’s research assistant. Joshua.”

  “I thought you looked too young to be a doctor,” Lucy said, her blush deepening.

  “Perhaps I’m a prodigy,” Joshua said.

  “You are involved with this project, so you must be smart.”

  “As are you.”

  “I’m a lab rat,” Lucy said. They both knew that, but it was nice of him to act as if she were a vital piece of the program rather than the subject of an experiment.

  Joshua shook his head. “No, you aren’t. You have no idea how important you are.”

  “Because they gave me a few shots?” The prick of the needles was one of the only clear memories she had of the procedure.

  “To start with.” Joshua stood and drew a stethoscope out of his pocket. “May I?”

  “I thought you weren’t a doctor,” she said even as she nodded her assent.

  “This I’m capable of, but you probably shouldn’t allow me to cut you open or deliver a baby.”

  “Thankfully, I’ve no need of either service.”

  Joshua stood over her and paused. She noticed the hesitation and realized he needed her to unbutton her blouse. She tried to look confident and casual as though the thought of the handsome young man, who was definitely not a doctor, touching her bare skin didn’t bother her in the least. But her fingers fumbled on the buttons and she had to try three times before she managed to open the top one.

  “I’m afraid this is rather cold. Hold on.” Joshua rubbed the stethoscope with his fingers. “A little better.”

  “It’s fine,” Lucy sa
id, but her voice was high-pitched and unconvincing.

  But when his fingers brought the stethoscope to her chest, they brushed along her skin, trailing fire in their path. Her breath hitched in her throat.

  “Take a few deep breaths for me,” he said in a low voice.

  She did as he asked, and he listened. Lucy was certain that he was noting the rapid beating of her heart. He probably thought something was wrong with her, or even worse, perhaps he guessed that her body was responding to his touch. She wasn’t sure which was more distressing.

  Joshua moved behind her and gently slid the metal diaphragm of the stethoscope down her back. As he did, he swept her loose hair over her shoulder and for just a moment Lucy imagined his lips on the back of her neck. She pushed the thought aside. She was being silly and girlish, two traits she’d loathed in her girlfriends at school. And of all the places to lose her head! She had been recruited for a special mission. She was here at the request of the War Department. Now was no time to get goofy over a boy.

  “You didn’t enlist?” she asked him.

  Joshua’s hand slipped and the stethoscope slithered down the back of her blouse. He drew it up in a hasty motion.

  That was when she recalled where she had first seen him: at her briefing with Patton. She’d been haughty to him, but somehow between then and now her impression of him had changed. She could only guess that it had to do with the barely recalled memory she had of him during the procedure.

  “I was listed as four-F,” he admitted to her.

  “Oh.” Lucy felt very stupid, and she had to bite back the question every girl thought of upon hearing a young man was deemed 4-F.

  But Joshua seemed to know what she was thinking. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m in working order. My father paid someone to get me rejected. He knew it was the only way to keep me from going.”

  “It’s not really my business,” she said.