In Case of Rejection

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Matthew's mind went in hundreds of directions all at once. His most inflammatory response took reign over the others. He shuddered violently in his chair, like the cold wind of death had blown over him, and he suddenly felt deathly cold.

He brought his hand up to it again, tenderly, and through the pain, just barely grazed his fingers against it. A round orb, centered on his spine. It raised outside of his skin, just barely, and felt hot to the touch. He could imagine it in his head -- a blue light on the back of his neck, just like the kind his father had.

"We have to check," Matthew said, the words cutting through all of his other thoughts. He couldn't really word how terrified he felt. His mind flashed with father again, and he wanted to crawl up into a ball and die. He thought of Luke.

He rolled his shoulders back, letting the muscles in his back tense, then relax again.

"How?" Olive asked. Matthew closed his eyes to think.

She took one of his hands into her own, and Matthew opened his eyes again. She had pulled something from inside her uniform pocket, a safety pin. Matthew didn't have time to react.

He didn't really react anyway. She unfastened it and put the sharp end into Matthew's fingertip. She pressed at the center of his finger, and a drop of blood bloomed on his finger pad. Sharp, red blood.

Olive sighed heavily, putting her free hand to her forehead.

"I don't feel different," Matthew said with a sigh of his own. "Just tired."

"They took you to Nerve Center?" She asked. Matthew nodded slowly, unsure of whether or not he was being controlled. He felt in control. He felt like he was himself. But then again, he didn't know what it felt like to not be himself, either.

"I was there the whole time. I tried to leave school, as you saw," Matthew's mind flitted to the scene at the auditorium, "but they caught up to me." The words started to tumble out now -- a painfully natural thing.

"I woke up a couple hours ago, and they had me drugged. They knew about my Dad-" Matthew's voice broke with the last few words, and he cleared his throat here. He had to look down at his feet, away from Olive, so that he could keep going.

"They knew that I killed one. Well, two," Matthew said, thinking of the one in the underground structure. With the white trucks.

"Wait, what?" Olive asked, looking up into Matthew's face directly. He looked at her then, and the way her eyes were so bright in the half-darkness.

"What?" He asked.

"You killed one? A Bot?" She asked.

"It was in my Dad's plans... A kill switch," Matthew said. He squinted, half expecting the light on the back of his neck to zap or something for divulging these secrets. When it didn't, he felt strangely comforted.

"If you jab up through the chin," Matthew started, demonstrating on himself with his index finger, pointing deep inside his head. "There's a little sensitive patch up there that my Dad put in. It's hard to reach, but you'll eventually get it. If you have something sharp."

"I've never heard that before," Olive said, looking at the palms of her hands inquisitively.

"It's because my Dad designed it that way, but I don't think many people know about it," he said. Olive raised her eyebrows at him.

"Brick said someone ripped the head off of one in Sector 23," Matthew said, and Olive's eyes shot up towards him again. Matthew nodded in time.

"Oh yeah. He was there," Matthew said. He laughed at the casual way he had brought it out into the open. Olive searched his expression for any way to comprehend what he had just said.