Dissonance - Book One

ten

I'm rushed to a small make-shift room sealed off with plastic tarps, near the front of the hovercraft, as the words of Wyler's betrayal ring in my ears. Three Environettix doctors are talking to one another on the other side of the clear plastic enclosure, but their words are muffled and I can't make out what it is that they are saying. I fear what will come next. Will they heal me first, and then start their experimentation, or will they immediately begin their sick torturous tests on the world's only remaining procreator?

A lone nurse remains, a girl who looks about my age. She inserts an IV into my arm and begins the flow of liquid into my body. I'm not sure what is being pumped into my body, but I immediately feel relaxed. I watch her as she tenderly takes the hair that has fallen in front of my face and tucks it behind my ear, since I can't move to adjust it myself with my arms strapped down to my sides. Her kindness is unnerving, but then I notice something. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun and I can see a small scar on the side of her neck in the exact same place as mine. An unlikely coincidence.

"Your scar," I say. "I have one too." The liquid pulses through my veins and I feel more and more at ease.

"I know," she states matter-of-fact, continuing on with the business of prepping me for whatever it is they are about to do.

"How did you get it?" I ask in a polite tone, hoping that she will take pity on me and answer my question. She looks up at the plastic tarp to see if anyone is paying attention, but the doctors remain on the other side of the partition, engrossed in what appears to be a tense conversation.

"The same way you did. All Mods have a tracking device."

"A tracking device?" I ask, and I hope it sounds convincing. I need to find out more information, so I pretend I don't understand, which is only a partial lie.

"Of course. Environettix would never let us roam free. Except for you that is."

"They took mine out?"

"Oh no, that's impossible. It's connected to your carotid artery. If you try to remove it, you'll die. Trust me. There are several Mods who learned that the hard way."

Then how were they unable to track me all these years, I wonder to myself. Did my uncle actually remove mine? My brain is growing cloudier. My body feels like Jell-O. I need to get more answers before she tries to knock me out completely.

"Is there some sort of on/off switch?" I inquire.

"Not exactly, but I've heard that they can be reprogrammed, so to speak. The tracking device is a small square with two key components, one is the brain and the other sends the signal. Since the center piece acts solely as a command center, technically, you could remove it and reprogram it while the rest of the device is intact. I've heard it's possible, but I've never seen it done. It's extremely risky."

The images from my nightmares pound in my head: my father shouting that I've woken up, my aunt and uncle standing over me, one holding a small square, my father assuring my mother that it's necessary for my protection. At some point after the car accident, they must have removed the brain of my tracking device and reprogrammed it, which is why Environettix was unable to find me. A piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. My nightmare was real, yet it remains compartmentalized in my dreams. When will it become a part of my actual memory? What will it take to access that part of my brain, to find out the truth about my past? It's like when you're in the middle of telling a story and you lose your train of thought and the information that you need is right there, you can feel it, but you can't quite recall it. And it's infuriating because your brain has failed you and it feels out of your control and you look to the person that you're speaking with to somehow pull out the information for you, as if they should know what it was you were going to say. And then a thought occurs to me. Maybe I don't need to rely solely on myself to understand what happened to me. Maybe this girl can help. She's a Mod after all, and working for Environettix, she is privy to the enemy's intel. We started out in the same place, with the same purpose. My path may have taken a detour, but she can help me. I know it. I just need to convince her.

"So you're like me?"

She nods.

"But you work for them?"

Again, she nods.

"Why?"

"Not all of us were given a second chance like you."

"Some second chance. Look where I've wound up." I raise my wrists an inch as they are pulled back down by the shackles. She frowns and I can tell she feels sympathetic, maybe even empathetic, to my plight. There's compassion in her eyes. I can tell she's not like the others. She's one of my kind, even if she does work for Environettix.

"Please," I beg. "You have to help me. They're monsters. You know that."

"I'm sorry. I can't risk it. My family. They'll hurt them." She looks around nervously and I can tell I'm losing her. My time is limited. Anything else I want to know, I'll have to get it out of her quickly, before the others return or before I'm knocked completely unconscious.

"Please, just tell me where Wyler is," I beg.

I shouldn't care, but I do. I must have heard that man wrong, the one who patted Wyler on the shoulder. I want so badly for it not to be true. There must be some explanation for what he said. And even if it's as bad as it seems, I can't bear the thought of them hurting Wyler, or worse. Despite my anger over his betrayal, something about what happened just doesn't add up. When I heard that man say, "good work" I immediately panicked about the beacon. I figured it was Wyler's way of leading Lex and Kelly into a trap, like he did me, but if that were the case then he would have given the beacon directly to Environettix. But he didn't. He gave it to me and the only plausible answer, is that he did it because he wants Kelly and Lex to find me.

"He's in quarantine," the girl whispers. "A precaution since he was in contact with the humans exposed to the virus."

"But those people were dead. How could he have possibly contracted the disease?"

"Technically, he shouldn't have. It was intended only to affect older humans, adults mainly, but it has become...unpredictable. It has morphed, now affecting pretty much any human, as well as animals, and where you used to be safe as long as you didn't have contact with a victim, it now appears to be spreading in other ways."

"What do you mean by 'intended?'" Her back is to me and she freezes, no doubt, realizing her slip-up. She pauses for a minute, then spins back around, and continues on as if I never asked the question.

"Even if he does have it though, he's a Mod, so his altered immune system will significantly improve his chances of survival. It's not as advanced as yours, of course. Third generation Mods are practically invincible, although you took quite a beating. Wyler will still have a fight ahead of him, that is, if they decide to keep him."

She speaks of Wyler and I as if we are machines, not human beings.

"Keep him?" I ask.

"His work is done. He brought you to them. He's worthless now, and Environettix tends to dispose of things that are useless to them, which is exactly why I should stop talking to you."

She looks up as the doctors on the other side of the divider have taken notice of our conversation. And while I hope that our discussion won't result in this girl being punished, I know there is a good chance that it will. My faith in humanity has been forever altered, especially since I can't even trust the one person who I thought I loved.