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THE MEDIC—SHE’D INTRODUCED herself as Doctor Simon—loosened the restraint on Aubrey’s left arm. It was only there to keep you from pulling off your bandages, the doctor had reassured her.
Free now, Aubrey eased her arm across her body, biting her lip as she reached for her right arm. I know what I felt, but I’ve heard about “phantom pain.” I have to know . . .
She felt the heavy bandages muffling her right hand and forearm. The pain hadn’t lied. She still had both hands. She sighed with relief, and almost cried out from the answering spike of pain in her mid-section.
She held her breath, lower lip caught between her teeth, as she gingerly drew her fingers over the stitches just below her sternum. The pressure, no matter how slight, was rewarded with a stabbing sensation clear through to her spine.
Snake Lady shot me. She tried to kill me.
Aubrey tried to fasten on any memory before she woke up blind and restrained. Try as she might, her recollections were hazy and poorly defined. Almost as if they’d been blocked out.
Snake Lady tried to kill me.
She didn’t realize she’d said the words out loud until she heard Doctor Simon speak. From the sound of her voice, she was to Aubrey’s right, almost within reach.
“Someone tried to kill you?” Doc’s voice was calm and level, although there was a no-nonsense air of competency about her. Just how you’d like a doctor to sound. “What can you tell me about that?”
Aubrey’s fingertips traced the stitches once more, but gently to avoid a second burst of the lightning pain. “Here. The bullet hole. She shot me but I survived. You operated on me, didn’t you? Did you get the bullet out?”
She heard a slight whisper of fabric as the physician bent over the bed. Aubrey knew, intuitively, Doctor Simon was leaning over her, looking at her. It’s amazing how fast my other senses kick in to compensate. I may be blind, but I’m adapting.
“Bullet? What are you talking about?” Doc Simon sounded genuinely confused. “There wasn’t any bullet, because you weren’t shot. If you’re referring to the incision on your abdomen, that was my doing. It was the only way I could remove your Implant.”
Implant? What do you mean? I’ve heard the term somewhere before.
Aubrey’s mind raced, and she froze as the memory of the burning farmhouse flashed across her mind’s eye. Thomas. Sarah. The night when my world turned upside down. The Soul-less!
“It’s gone?” She heard herself ask, her voice sounding weak but hopeful. “You really took it out?”
Doctor Simon patted her on the shoulder. “Yes, Aubrey, it’s gone. They installed it inside your ribcage, right next to your spine. The least invasive way to it was through your abdomen.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just a small incision. You’ll heal up just fine, as long as you don’t push yourself. But it was a deep cut. I had to . . . dig around a bit to extract your Implant.”
Aubrey heard the door open, and the tramp of overlapping footsteps. Several people—Aubrey couldn’t tell how many—joined Doctor Simon around the gurney.
Her heart was in her throat again, as fear and frustration competed for primacy in her mind. I can’t see anything! Worse, I’m too broken to fight back even if I could see!
“Are you okay, Aubrey? How are you feeling?” It was a woman’s voice.
Sheila. Aubrey matched a name to the voice. I remember her. The night at the café. She’s tough but I think she’s a kind person underneath.
Her mind flinched away from remembering any more. Death had come stalking that night.
“We’re all here, Aubrey.” A man’s voice, gruff but gentle. Don. The big guy. “Sheila, Garr, Amos, Jane—we’re all here.”
The name “Garr” meant nothing to her. Only one name mattered. Snake Lady’s here. She pointed a gun at me. She was going to kill me.
“What happened to me? Why can’t I see?” Her questions spilled out.
The doctor’s hand was on her shoulder again. Aubrey sensed the nearness of the others as they gathered around her bed.
“Well, for starters, you’ve had quite a shock to your system,” Doc said in her gentle, professional manner. “It’ll take some time to make a full recovery, but you’re going to be fine.”
Aubrey heard Jane’s voice near the foot of her bed. She tensed in spite of herself, enduring the shooting bolts of pain. She was adapting, somehow.
“She came at me with her blade.” Jane’s voice wasn’t as sharp as usual, but she sounded defensive and that grated on Aubrey’s nerves anyway. “You all know how bad the tunnels are. There’s wires hanging down, debris scattered everywhere, and half the lights don’t work.”
Aubrey wished she could see, if only to keep track of her.
“Country . . . Aubrey pulled her knife on me. She wanted to kill me.” Jane’s voice grew sharper as she spoke. “Trust me—it was in her blood. I could see it. Just like before.”
Her voice trailed off for a moment. When she spoke again, her defensiveness was back. “She hacked through some overhead wires when she swung at me. I thought she was dead—electrocuted.”
Jane took a deep breath before continuing. “When I realized she was still alive, I stayed with her but I kept my gun on her. I couldn’t be sure what might happen if she woke up. It was in her blood. I know it was. I saw the look in her eyes . . .”
“And that’s how we found you.” A new voice interjected, just above Aubrey’s head. The one called Garr, she assumed. She’d felt somebody’s presence there. Now she knew whom.
“I’m going to overlook your contraband weapon, Jane,” Garr said. Aubrey could tell when he looked at Jane, and back at her, just by his voice. “The power surge knocked you out, Aubrey, and that’s the only reason we were able to bring you back safely.”
Snake Lady didn’t shoot me. Aubrey marveled, but just for a moment. She was getting answers, which only led to more questions. “Why can’t I see? What’s wrong with my arm?”
“Electrocution, even when not fatal, causes a great deal of damage to the human body,” Doctor Simon said gently. “Any electrical shock powerful enough to knock you out will leave its mark in other ways, as well.
Her hand moved from Aubrey’s shoulder to smooth her hair. “Remember, I’m confident you’ll recover, but I’ll be honest. Your right arm—the one holding the knife—suffered serious electrical burns. You should recover most, if not all, of your mobility, but there’ll be some scarring.”
“What about my eyes?” Aubrey asked weakly, dreading the answer.
She heard how hollow her voice sounded. Don’t hide it from me. Please, I have to know.
The doctor’s hand returned to its former place on Aubrey’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, young lady, your eyes will be fine. They’re just a little tender right now. We’ll keep the bandages on for another couple of days, just to give them a rest.”
Relief flooded over her. As long as I can see! I don’t mind if I have to learn to be left-handed. As long as I can see.
“Jane said Aubrey’s been cured.” Amos interrupted her brief respite. He sounded suspicious, and she thought she could guess why. It became clear a moment later.
“It was in her blood.” Amos said bluntly. “Nobody’s ever come back after the nanites got into their blood. Doc, how can you say she’s been cured? What if they’re still there, waiting for another time, when we aren’t expecting it?”
The doctor chuckled, the sound reassuring to Aubrey’s ears. “Well, Amos, I can give you two reasons. First, I’ve removed Aubrey’s Implant. It can’t affect her while it’s sitting in a sample dish on my workbench. Second, there’s another side-effect of electrocution to consider. We’ve learned something new through Aubrey’s experience. Several things, actually.”
Aubrey angled her bandaged face toward the sound of her voice. “For one thing, a solid jolt of electricity interrupts the conversion process. The shock halted whatever happens when an Implant infiltrates the blood. More important, the nanites have been eradicated from Aubrey’s system. I’ve done the blood tests—several times, just to be sure—and I can tell you, categorically, it’s not in her blood. Not anymore.”
Aubrey felt the tension in the room melting away.
I still don’t remember what happened. I thought Snake Lady was going to shoot me, and I think I was ready to kill her, too. Something was happening to me, but I can’t remember.
“When I removed her Implant,” Doc said, “I discovered it had been deactivated. The electrical surge burned it out. The Implant was prevented from turning Aubrey into . . .”
She paused, her voice faltering. “Something else.”
There was a brief silence, broken by Don’s easy-going drawl. “Well, that’s something we didn’t know, but now what? I suppose we could take a cattle prod to any future Runner we meet . . .”
He was joking, of course, but no-one laughed.
“That, of course, is everyone’s frustration,” Garr said. Aubrey sensed his authority in how he spoke, the respect the others gave him. “We’re still in the dark about why the Hoarders are creating Runners in the first place. I know I’m repeating myself, but what’s their end game?”
“What does it matter, Garr?” There was no mistaking the irritation in Amos’ voice, closer to the foot of the bed than before. Aubrey cringed, imagining his piercing gaze was directed at her. “Hoarders think nothing of gunning people down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or sending Trackers to slaughter a Runner whether they know what’s going on or not.”
Amos continued without pausing, his bitter words spilling out faster. “The Hoarders like playing twisted political games, with us as their expendable pawns. What difference does it make why they’re doing it? We’ve got to find a way to stop them, period.”
“Shoot first, aim later, Amos?” Don asked, reasonably. Amos fell silent, and Aubrey wished she could see his expression.
Garr sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Amos, but Don raises a good point. Up ‘til now, we’ve focused our efforts on identifying individual Runners and trying to find them before the Trackers do. We can’t afford to stick to that approach indefinitely. There’s a larger picture here. If we don’t figure out what the endgame is, we’ll never be able to carve out a safe niche for ourselves. Anywhere.”
Aubrey felt her eyelids drooping. She was exhausted. Maybe that’s my body’s way of conserving energy during the healing process.
The deluge of information and emotion swirling around her bedside was, she suspected, partly to blame. It’s draining to listen without seeing their expressions, their body language, all the little visual cues.
As she drifted back into sleep, Aubrey almost missed the tail end of the discussion. What little she heard would haunt her dreams for days.
“Whatever the Hoarders’ endgame is, at least we’ve got some breathing room for now.” Don’s confident drawl was somehow reassuring. “Amos’s Implant is lost in the woods, and Aubrey’s is burned out. They can’t track us, at least for the time being. That buys us some time.”
Aubrey struggled to rouse herself. The Soul-less. The left eye of the Soul-less . . .
Garr’s last words barely registered. “Let’s not lose sight of this: Aubrey escaped from three separate attacks in just a matter of days. And then her Implant was activated, roughly about the same time as Amos’s.
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
He took a deep breath. “Whatever the Hoarders are up to, their timeline is accelerating.”
His sober warning was the last thing Aubrey heard before fatigue claimed her.