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I nod, both to her and to myself. She is empathetic. I’m sure I’ll be able to use her to my advantage.
“That box they put me in…” My voice trails off as my throat seizes up on me. I try to swallow, but I can’t. It feels like my tongue is swelling up. I push my shoulder against the bed to roll over, but my body suddenly goes stiff, and I start to shake uncontrollably.
“Galen? Galen!” Anna’s face looms over me, but I can’t respond to her. “Merle! I need help! He’s having a seizure!”
She places her hands on my shoulders, holding me to the bed. I can’t feel her touch; I can only watch her actions as someone else enters the room. I can’t focus enough to tell who it is.
“Grab my bag! Look for a bottle marked benzodiazepine.”
I jerk and thrash, but I still can’t feel anything. Bright lights flicker in my eyes and in my head, but there’s no accompanying information in my mind.
“Hold him down. Make sure his head is turned to the side.”
I watch Anna fill another syringe from a vial and inject it into my thigh. After a few seconds, my body stills and I collapse on the mattress. I still can’t feel anything, and I can only breathe in quick, short breaths.
“The implants are totally fucked,” Errol says. I don’t know when he came into the room or how long he’s been here. “They’re going into critical failure.”
I can only barely hear the words, but my heart beats faster at his diagnosis. What happens to me if the implants fail? Were they scrambling themselves, like Merle said they could do if someone tried to access information? Is this going to kill me?
“What did you do to him?” Merle is next to me now.
“I only gave him a vitamin shot. It’s the same one everyone gets. That shouldn’t be having this kind of effect.”
“Vitamins aren’t going to interfere with the implants,” Errol says. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t know what’s going on. There could be a defect in the original manufacturing. Some of this doesn’t fit with my design at all.”
“We have no idea what modifications Dr. Grace incorporated into his treatments,” Merle says. “There’s no telling what could have an impact on him.”
“I don’t think it was the shot,” Errol says. “These readings are FUBAR.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Fucked up beyond all recognition.”
“Is that your technical opinion?”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”
“Can you do anything about it?” Anna asks.
“May
be, but without access to the drug treatments and the specs from this exact implant’s construction, anything I do will be temporary.” Errol presses against the device in my neck. “Do you think you could remove the implants surgically?”
“Not without killing him,” she says. “These are meant to be permanent.”
“Hell if I know what else to do. I’ll go over the diagnostic data, but that’s going to take time.”
“Make it quick,” Merle says. “We can’t lose him. He’s far too important.”
The flashes in my head increase. I can’t see. I can’t hear. A tidal wave of data inside my head smashes into me. Every memory I have ever had from the moment I was born floods into my head. A million scenes go through my mind, and then I see a brilliant white light. It blinds me from the inside until there is blackness.
Nothing but blackness.
Chapter 16
I’m fractured.
Inside my head, memories flow in and out like ocean waves, depositing bits and pieces of information on the shoreline of my psyche. Sometimes the pieces flow together and the pictures are clear, but usually there are only fragments—broken and disjointed.
