Page 103 of Anarchy Missing

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - CASE

I lie on the floor for what seems like forever. My eyes are closed, and the voice in my head never stops talking.

Something is wrong with me.

That medication. The words fleetingly pass over the other voice. You took those emotion pills.

“Now what?”

No answer. Not in my head. Not outside my head. I’m just alone with the pain, and the heat coursing through my body.

I need a knife. I need a fucking knife so I can cut it out of me.

Get up. Go to the screen. Watch it closely.

Who are you?

Get up. Go to the screen. Watch it closely.

“No,” I say aloud. “Fuck that.”

But the pain builds inside me. I’m gonna be stuck here tonight. With no knife, and no snow, and no roof, and no way to get rid of the evil brewing inside me.

Get up. Go to the screen. Watch it closely.

I try to come up with an idea. I could yell. Make them come back and shoot me with the ElectroDart again. Put me out of my misery. I could—

An alarm starts screaming in the holding cell area.

All the prisoners lined up in this block with me begin yelling. Demanding answers.

No one comes. It’s just the scream of the station alarm, and me, alone with my defects.

Get up. Go to the screen. Watch it closely.

I have no options, I realize. I’m at the mercy of the city. Because there’s no way to deny it anymore. That’s the voice in my head. It’s in my brain. It’s in my blood. It’s the reason I’m filled with heat, and pain, and right now, I’m filled with hate too.

I sit up. Open my eyes. The screaming siren fades away until there is only me left. Me and the voice that has a plan.

I have a plan, it sings in my head. Now get up. Go to the screen, and watch it closely.

I’m on autopilot. My legs bend, hands press flat on the cold concrete floor. I lift myself up to standing. And I stare at the SpyGlass screen across my cell.

It’s flashing.

Something inside me knows this is bad. Some memory in there is telling me to look away or I’m gonna end up like all those scientists up on the twenty-first floor of Blue Corp. A gun in my hand. Madness in my head.

And then…

Watch carefully.

I don’t look away. The whole plan becomes clear then. All presented in perfect detail. Outlined step by step. Just do what it says, Case, the voice is telling me. Just follow instructions and you’ll be just fine. I’ll take the pain away. I’ll take the heat away. You can go back outside. It’s snowing now. Don’t you want to feel the cold snow on your bare skin tonight? Don’t you need it?

“I do need it,” I whisper. “But I need to cut first. I need to make deep, deep cuts. Give me something to cut myself first and then I’ll do anything you want.”

Smash the SpyGlass. Use me to cut you.

I don’t think it’ll work. The glass is not really glass. I know this, I made it. I designed that piece of tech myself. It was supposed to do good things. It was supposed to make things better.