He looks at me quizzically. I’m playing a dangerous game, and I know it. I can’t actually say anything to him while under the influence of Riley’s command, but I want him to know what I know. I want him to know we didn’t volunteer for anything.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
I don’t get a chance to say anything else before the meeting begins.
“Specimen Seventy-Two,” Captain Mills says as she looks at me, “we have already heard Fourteen’s account of the mission. I want you to start from the moment you broke away from the other specimens.”
I take one last look at Isaac before I take a deep breath.
“I disengaged from the group and went back to verify we were not being followed,” I say. “I discovered later that I had been hit with a tracking device and that my implant was compromised. I was compelled to backtrack, whi
ch is when I was captured.”
I recount everything from my capture and subsequent torture. They are primarily interested in the presence of Errol Spat and Anna Jarvis. Most of the doctors take notes as I speak, and a few of them ask me questions. Riley doesn’t take notes and says nothing. When I glance at her, I have the impression she’s barely keeping herself together as I tell them what I went through.
I say nothing about my conversation with Merle regarding my identity, and I don’t bring up Hal at all. I simply skip seamlessly from one point to the next until I get to the part of the story where Riley finds me.
“What was the name of the man who came to speak to you?” It’s the first time Colonel Mills has spoken to me.
“Merle, sir,” I say as I look him in the eye. “He never gave me a last name.”
“Merle Hudson,” Captain Mills says. “He is still alive.”
“Hudson?” I look between each of the Mills officers, and they both nod.
“Peter Hudson’s cousin,” Colonel Mills says. “He was a dean at Carson University before the comet struck. We’ve had conflicting intelligence over the years concerning his activities and whereabouts, including rumors of his death.”
The technical team asks for clarification on Errol Spat’s activities in my presence, and I answer them as best I can. When they’re finished, Captain Mills questions me about my escape.
“I don’t have much memory of it,” I tell her. “Spat said my implants were failing, and Jarvis said I was going to die.”
“Why didn’t they just let you die?” Dr. McCall sits up straight in her seat and glares at me. “They could have dissected you, had plenty of time to hack into your implants, and learned everything you were unable to tell them yourself.”
“Those implants can’t be hacked,” one of the techs points out. “If an attempt is made, they self-destruct.”
“If anyone knows a way around that design, it’s Spat. We have no idea if he created backdoors for himself.”
“Of course he did. What tech doesn’t?”
“You sound like you want to be thrown off this project.” Captain Mills raises an eyebrow as she stares down the tech.
“No, ma’am,” he says. “I’m just being honest here.”
“That’s treason.”
“It’s not a matter of treason,” the tech says. “It’s a safety measure in case anything was to go significantly wrong.”
“He’s right,” another tech says. “It’s a common practice in design.”
They argue the point for several minutes before Dr. McCall comes back to me.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she says. “Why were you released?”
“I can’t answer that, ma’am.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She sneers at me.
“I don’t know why they released me,” I say. “I can only tell you what I heard. I’m not even sure if my account from that time can be trusted. I was having difficulty remaining conscious, and I was barely coherent when I was. I remember Jarvis saying I was going into withdrawal because they didn’t have the drug treatments. Spat seemed to think the extreme cold I was subjected to in order to make the implants fail might have been too much for my system to handle.”