Specimen

Poison?

Inside my head, there’s a rush of information regarding chemicals in my bloodstream, but nothing comes back as an anomaly.

There has to be a reason for it.

I look behind me, watching for signs of anyone following us through the trees but see nothing. I don’t hear anything, either. Isaac is ahead of me with Pike on his back.

“Do you hear anything?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he says after a brief pause. “You think we got a tail?”

I shake my head, uncertain. I just know something isn’t right.

I glance back and forth between the trees behind us. I see no movement, but I’m sure someone is out there. We reach the riverbank, and Isaac pauses for a moment by a group of rocks to get a better grip on Pike’s body.

“Sten? You taking lead?”

“No.” I stare back into the woods, listening carefully.

“What is it?”

“Not sure.”

“Animal?” Isaac cocks his head to the side, trying to hear what I heard. He takes a step away from the riverbank.

“Keep moving,” I tell Isaac. “Get back to the base. I’m going to make sure no one is following.”

He nods and heads into the water as I slip back into the trees. I know I heard something back here that was too big to be a common forest animal.

I step slowly through the underbrush, watching my footing carefully to keep silent. I listen for further sounds but hear nothing. I can still feel someone out there—someone watching me.

Pausing, I bring my rifle to my shoulder and scan the area. I’m missing something—I can feel it. Concentrating, I try to pull together the data being fed through my eyes and ears to figure out what I should be noticing, but it’s not working. It feels like something is spinning in a circle inside my head, and I can’t make heads or tails of the information.

I reach up and rub my neck. The spot where the needle struck still throbs.

“Now!”

I turn toward the voice, weapon aimed. Movement from above catches my eye just before a large net falls over my head. I struggle against it for only a moment before my body jerks backward, and electricity flows through the net’s webbing.

Gloved hands cover me, pushing me down. I try to push against the invaders, but my body isn’t responding to my commands.

I’ve been hit with electrical charges before as part of training, but it’s nothing like this. I can hear and feel a slow, deliberate throbbing as the impulses hit. Every hit goes right to my head. I feel no burns on my body—I could have forced myself to ignore those. Whatever is happening now is all in my head, focusing on the right temporal lobe where my primary implant is located.

“Sten, status! Sten!”

I can hear her words in my head, but I can’t respond. The next jolt drops me to my knees, and I am completely surrounded by the gloved hands. For a moment, the impulses stop. I grab through the net’s webbing for the nearest person and slam the heel of my hand into his nose, sending bone into his brain. He drops as I feel another intense shock through my head.

They’re all over me. Between pulses, I swing and kick. I know I kill several of them, but for every one that drops, two more take his place. I feel myself being lifted into the air.

“Sten!” Riley’s voice is muffled, full of static.

“Give it up, Superman.”

I wrench my shoulders back and forth as I’m strapped to a flat platform—a stretcher of some sort—still wrapped in the net. My vision is failing, but I feel someone unwrapping the net around my legs and trying to strap me to the platform, I kick out at those trying to hold my legs, but I can’t seem to make contact with them.

I’m completely immobilized. The electric impulses stop, but I’m left feeling disoriented. My thoughts are disjointed and confused. There’s only one thing I know for sure—I’ve been captured.

Riley’s voice is no longer in my head. I’ve never had so many people around me at once, and I feel more alone than ever.