Specimen

I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on the pain in my body, concentrating on it, reveling in it, but it doesn’t help the emotional agony going on inside my head.

I know at least some of what Merle and Hal told me is true. But if any of it is true, then Riley lied to me. If she lied to me about one thing, how could I trust anything she’s told me?

At the same time, I want to see her. I want to smell her and touch her. There is a fundamental need inside of me to be close to her. I know part of it is the physical need that has been chemically induced as a way to control my actions and make me obey her commands, but there’s more to it than that.

Isn’t there?

For months she has been my doctor, my lover, my constant companion. She has cared for me and has given me everything I need. She has stayed with me when I’ve needed her to. She has held me when the treatments got bad.

She did that to me. She caused the pain.

It doesn’t matter. What she’s done to me makes no difference because I have no one else. Even though I have no idea where I am or how far I am from her, the image of her face in my mind is a beacon, calling me to her. I have to get back to her. Riley will sort all this out. She will allay my fears and convince me everything is right with the world.

“Good morning, Galen.” Merle comes in with a new, unbroken chair in his hand as well as a new canvas bag. He places the chair next to my head, sits down, and hands me another wrap and bottle of water. “How did you sleep?”

I stare up at him, wondering if he’s just going to pretend the mayhem around us isn’t there and ignore the fact that I had wanted to kill him a few hours ago. If I hadn’t been deterred by whatever they did to me, I would have killed them both.

“Galen, will you talk to me?”

The murderous rage from before doesn’t have a hold of me at the moment, but I have no interest in exchanging pleasantries with my captor. I remain silent as I pull the wrap out of the bag and start to chew.

The motion makes my jaw and head ache. I only take a few bites before placing the rest back in the bag.

“I would like to talk to you some more,” Merle says, trying to encourage me. “I know yesterday was difficult, but I hope you’ve considered some of what you were told.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” I shake my head and twist open the top of the water bottle.

“You might,” he says. “There are some things I really need to know, and it will be in your own best interest to tell me.”

I doubt it.

“How about you answer my questions?” I place the bottle on the floor and lean back against the skewed mattress, arms crossed.

“If I can.”

“What did you hit me with?” I ask. “When the convoy stopped, and the troops came out, something hit me in the neck.”

“A tracking device,” he tells me. “Errol designed it so it wouldn’t be detected by your implants. It allowed us to both follow you and trigger your implant to encourage you to go back to investigate—leave your companions.”

“What about the net that was dropped on me?”

“Another device designed to interfere with the function of your implants.”

I think about it for a moment. I understood Errol Spat’s importance as a technology expert on the implants, but I hadn’t realized how dangerous he could be to us before now.

“I was hit with something similar when you were here before.”

“Yes.” Merle presses his lips together. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the device in your neck. It delivers similar impulses straight into your primary implant. There was a concern you may become violent, which was obviously a correct assumption.”

I rub at the device on my neck, just below my right ear. I can get my fingernail up against the edge of it, but I can’t bring myself to try to pull it out. Something inside my head stops me.

“Why did you target me? Why not one of the other specimens?”

“We knew you were special,” Merle says. “Our intelligence informed us that one of the specimens from Project Mindstorm was different—that someone had inadvisably allowed Dr. Grace to use her altered formula. We knew you were the most dangerous of the lot.”

I wonder why he considers her treatments inadvisable, but I don’t ask for clarification.

“And that made you want to capture me?”