SAGE
“There you are.” Dr. Adamson looked down at me.
I laid on the hotel bed, my mouth gagged. My arms were tied to my sides, a rope around my waist. My lower legs were held down by Dr. Stanstopolis. I had an IV in my right arm, just above the bend at my elbow, and the tube led to the IV stand at the side of the bed. Three bags of fluid hung from the IV stand: a giant bag of saline, a medium bag of something else clear, and a small bag of neon yellow liquid.
“This will be quite painless,” Dr. Adamson said. “I will administer anesthesia momentarily, and you won’t feel a thing. You’ll be completely under.”
Dr. Adamson palpated the skin around my IV insertion, inspecting it. “Yesterday morning, Dr. Stanstopolis was able to determine the state of your follicles. You’re close. Very close. But they need to be nice and ripe, so I brought something to help that along.” He lifted the bag of yellow liquid.
I recognized it, then, from the island. Dr. Tappit had held the same color fluid in a syringe just above my arm while we waited to see if my father would call and save me.
“I can tell by the look in your eyes that you recognize this,” Dr. Adamson said.
“You see,” he continued, “during the short mutation time when modwrogs change, large shifts take place inside their bodies. Everything speeds up, sending them through puberty, not over a matter of years, but in a matter of minutes. It’s why their bones, their facial structure, their skin, and their muscles all stretch as they do—the body grows within minutes in a way that would normally take much longer. Their system is moving so fast, it doesn’t know when to stop. The degenerative process sets into motion, and within a few months, they die.”
Dr. Adamson released a clamp on both the clear packets of fluid and pushed a button on the IV machine. Within seconds, I felt the coolness of the saline and the anesthesia enter my arm.
“But we’re not going to give you the whole serum packet. You don’t need it. With just a little bit of the serum—a drop, maybe two—we’re going to plump up your follicles. Make them nice and extractable.”
No. No. No.
I struggled against the ropes, fought as hard as I could against Dr. Stanstopolis’s body weight holding down my legs.
Fight. Do not give up. Fight this, Sage.
The IV needle poked at my arm.
How far away were Jack and Beckett? If I could hold the doctors off a little longer, hold off the procedure, buy myself some time ….
“No, no. Don’t fight us,” Dr. Adamson said.
The tube to the yellow liquid had a separate button from the main box, attached lower on the tube itself. Dr. Adamson pressed it only once. A single yellow drop slipped down into the tube toward my arm. “Just a few minutes, and you’ll be ready.”
Dr. Adamson slid behind Dr. Stanstopolis and sat in a chair positioned at the foot of the bed.
“Honestly, the first time I met you, I was sure you’d die on the island.” He wheeled the surgical table closer to his chair and pulled on two latex gloves, the plastic snapping against his wrists when he released them.
“Of course, that was before I knew what you are. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at us meeting again.”
I blinked once, my eyelids felt heavy. My brain grew foggy. But I still fought, pressing against the weight of the drug, the weight of Dr. Stanstopolis.
Dr. Adamson smiled at me. “You have a good rest now, okay?”