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I tried to jerk my arm loose. She held it tight.
“Kidding, Doctor,” she said. “I just need a blood sample.”
She tapped the inner hollow of my elbow and jabbed the needle into a vein.
“Don’t faint on me,” she said.
I watched my blood trickle through a narrow tube into a small glass vial. When the vial was full, Meed pulled out the needle and swiped a small Band-Aid over the hole it had left. She set the sample on a chrome tray next to a machine. “We’ll run a CBC later,” she said, “and then we’ll tune up your supplement mix.”
“Are you licensed for this??” I asked.
“This—and bartending,” she replied. “Stand up.”
The wires from the electrodes dangled from my chest. She connected them one by one to a white plastic machine with an LED screen and a bunch of colored buttons.
She wheeled the device, with me attached, over to a serious-looking treadmill.
“Hop on, Doctor,” she said.
I was still weak from tossing up my breakfast. My arm was sore from the needle stick. And I was tired of being led around like a lab monkey. Enough.
“No way,” I said, planting my feet. “These things make me dizzy.”
She reached back into the instrument drawer and pulled out a slim black metal rod. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s try this.” She poked the tip of the rod under the bottom edge of my shorts. I felt a hot shock on my ass cheek.
“Fuck!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“That’s the spirit,” she said, shoving me onto the machine. She punched the touchscreen, and I felt the belt start to move under my feet. I took a couple of quick steps to get up to walking speed. She started cranking the control higher—and higher. I was jogging. Then running. Then sprinting. I grabbed for the handrail. The wires on my chest were bouncing up and down. I had no idea how to stop the damned thing, and if I tried to jump off at this speed, I’d probably break an ankle. I felt sweat seeping from my scalp and armpits. I was already panting so hard it hurt.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I gasped.
“What fun would that be?” Meed replied.
She tapped another button. Music started blasting from speakers hidden in the ceiling. I heard Eminem’s voice. The song was Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor.”
“Not funny,” I wheezed. My legs ached. My lungs ached. And my butt was still tingling. Meed dialed the incline up to twenty degrees.
“While we’re at it,” she said, “we also need to work on your sense of humor.”
CHAPTER 9
Eastern Russia
20 Years Ago
THE TEN-YEAR-OLD STUDENTS were high on a snowy mountain far above the school. The air temperature was below freezing, and the wind took it down another fifteen degrees. The atmosphere was thin, and the students were struggling to breathe. They had been hiking for five hours.
Annika, the blond sixteen-year-old instructor, was at the front of the line, with the students linked behind her by lengths of climbing rope. She had led this hike three times since first completing it herself. It never got any easier. As the students pressed forward, thigh-deep in snow, Annika peppered them with questions. The exercise was designed as an intellectual challenge, not just a physical one. Annika had started with simple questions. Now it was time to push. Her trainees needed to be able to think under stress.
“Square root of ninety-eight!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Nine point eight nine nine,” the class called back in near unison, their voices weak and almost lost in the wind. Irina and Meed were near the end of the line, separated by a five-foot length of rope. Meed stared ahead at the tips of Irina’s dark hair, almost frozen solid.
Annika called out the next question. “Six major tributaries of the Amazon!”
One by one, from various students in the line, the names came back. “Japurá!” “Juruá!” “Negro!” “Madeira!” Then, a pause.
“Purus!” shouted Irina.
