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I feel the pulsing of the data as it’s loaded into me, information about various aircraft, including how to fly them.
“What is this for?”
“Just follow my lead, and don’t say anything.”
She pulls a gurney over to the exam stable and moves me to it. She straps down my arms and legs, but the restraints are loose. I could pull out of them easily.
“Start thrashing around,” she says. “Act like you’re having a convulsion.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it!”
I shake my arms up and down against the restraints and throw my head from side to side. Riley runs to the door and yells to one of the guards.
“We’ve got a serious issue with this specimen’s implant!” she tells him. “I need a helicopter on pad four in five minutes! Transport to Highland Med—they have the neurological resources I need there. I’ll contact them and tell them to expect us. You get that helicopter!”
“Yes, ma’am!” The guard takes off, and Riley yells at the other one to help her wheel me out of the room. I keep shaking and thrashing around.
“What’s wrong with him?” the guard asks. “He wasn’t like this before!”
“There’s a malfunction in the primary implant. I can fix it, but I need to get him to Highland to do it.”
“We’ll get you there,” the guard says.
I’m wheeled into an elevator and then out to the rooftop. I continue to flop around on the gurney, careful not to move too quickly or with too much force so I don’t break the straps.
“This is the only chopper that fits on this pad, ma’am! We can’t fit him and your guards in at the same time.”
“We have to make do,” Riley yells over the whirring blades. She shoves her medical bag under the seat inside the machine. “We don’t have time to wait for another one!”
I force myself not to smile. She chose the smaller pad on purpose so the guards wouldn’t fit. The data on how to fly the helicopter is already loaded into my head.
The guard stands on the pad, bewildered, as we rise into the air without him. The pilot, Riley, and I are the only ones on the chopper.
As soon as we’re in the air, Riley releases the straps from my arms and legs. She says nothing, just gives me a forceful look and a nod toward the pilot.
I come up behind him and wrap my fingers around his throat.
“Just fly.” I tell him.
His eyes go wide as I lean over and grab the radio with my free hand, pulling it from the control panel in the center. Once the radio is destroyed, I grab the pilot’s safety harness and pull the release.
“Hang on,” I call back to Riley.
With a quick twist, I break the pilot’s neck. The helicopter lurches forward for a moment as I pull his body from the seat and fling him behind me so I can take his place. With my left hand, I grasp the collective, which controls the main rotor’s blade, and ease it higher while opening up the throttle. I take hold of the cyclic control with my right hand to regulate the helicopter’s movement forward, backward, and side-to-side. My feet rest on the anti-torque pedals to control our heading.
It all happens in under six seconds.
“Oh, my God!”
I glance back at Riley, who is gripping her seat with both hands.
“Do you have this? Did the interface work?”
“I got it.” I give her a smile. “Where are we going?”
“West and north of Milton,” she says. “There’s a place out in the woods—a cabin my father owned. We should be good there for a while.”
