Chapter Thirty-four

Flashback

Three years had passed since I was introduced to WICKED for the first time. I was now nine years old, Linda was eleven and, for the past few years, our lives (aside from our nightly excursions through the tunnel which led to Group A, now a thing of the past) had been a constant round of lessons and medical tests. Every week, WICKED would take blood samples from us. Every week, our brains were scanned to check their activity and see how they were functioning. And every week, we had to push ourselves to the limits of our physical endurance on various pieces of exercise equipment.

"OK, Jenny, let's get you on the treadmill."

The speaker was one of the many doctors employed by WICKED, most of whom I knew only by sight. This one was a man in his mid thirties who had the same South Asian appearance as Indira: dark hair, light brown skin, eyes that almost appeared black. He was standing by a computer which was, via sensors attached to my chest, monitoring my resting heart rate. Eighty beats per minute according to the readout on the nearby screen, about average for someone my age. But this guy wasn't interested in "about average"; like other WICKED doctors I'd encountered before, he wanted to push me to my physical limits, get my heart rate up as high as possible. I didn't know it at the time, but they must have been preparing me for the Trials to come, Trials which would test me both physically and mentally. All in the name of finding a cure for the Flare, of course.

I climbed onto the treadmill. The doctor flipped a switch and the surface beneath my feet started moving, slowly at first but gradually building up speed until I was literally running on the spot. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, hear my breath coming in short gasps. My legs ached, but I dared not stop while the treadmill was still running; if I did, I would suffer a rather undignified (and painful) fall, as had happened to a girl named Gracie. She'd slipped when she stopped to take a breather while on the treadmill a few weeks back and ended up banging her face; the bruises were still visible. So, mindful of this, I kept my legs in motion, wondering how long I would have to keep it up this time. The length of time I spent on the treadmill varied from one session to the next, but I knew I would not be allowed to get off until WICKED had obtained the results they needed.

Presently, after I had been running without going anywhere for what felt like forever, the treadmill was slowed to a halt. The doctor waited until I'd had time to catch my breath before announcing the results. "Very good. You got your heart rate up to one-twenty." But his tone suggested that he felt there was room for improvement - as if I wasn't being pushed hard enough at these sessions already. And what was it all for anyway? What could forcing me to spend so much time running on a treadmill have to do with finding a cure? Without thinking about it, I blurted this question out.

"Because we require all our subjects to be at the peak of fitness," was all he said. But, when I asked him to elaborate, his only response was to tell me I was "dismissed". I left, wondering, as I had often done over the past three years, what form WICKED's seemingly endless battery of tests would take next.

A few weeks later, my fellow subjects and I were just about to leave the cafeteria after the evening meal when a bald-headed man walked in. I'd seen him about the facility - he was one of what WICKED called the Psychs - but I didn't know his name. Nor did I remember if he'd ever carried out any tests on me, but I'd encountered so many of WICKED's doctors over the past three years that it wouldn't surprise me if he had. His presence, however, did surprise me; it was unusual to see any adults who weren't part of the kitchen staff in here. What could he want?

Glancing at Linda, Flossie and Indira, I saw the same expression on all their faces, an expression I'm sure was mirrored on my own. They too were wondering what this guy was doing here. And we weren't the only ones. All over the cafeteria, girls were whispering to each other, speculating about the reason behind the presence of one of the Psychs in our dining facility. I caught a little of the conversation at the next table over.

"Isn't that Dr Leavitt?" Yoko wondered out loud.

"Yeah, the guy with the same surname as my namesake." The speaker was a girl named Henrietta, who had been at WICKED for just over a year; she had brown hair and was a little older than me. "Henrietta Leavitt, the astronomer," she added. "One of the other doctors told me once." Not that being named, or rather renamed, after someone who shared their surname with a member of staff made any difference to how she was treated. She was still subjected to the same tests as the rest of us, still had to share communal facilities.

"Never mind that," said Val. "What's he doing here?"

She received her answer almost at once. "Quiet, everyone, please," Dr Leavitt said. He didn't shout it or anything like that, but there was something about his tone that made everyone in the cafeteria stop talking and look his way. "Thank you. Some of you already know me, but, for the benefit of those who don't, I am Dr Leavitt, one of the Psychs in this facility. And I'm here to talk to you about the next stage in the experiment of which all of you are a vital part." He cleared his throat. "As you know, we require regular blood samples and killzone scans from all Immunes so that we can study how they can live with the Flare virus without suffering any ill effects. Those of you in the control group are subjected to the same tests for comparison purposes. However, over the past few years, we have been working on a device which will make most of those tests unnecessary, a device designed to be implanted directly into the brain. The device is now ready and the implantation surgery will be carried out tomorrow."

A device designed to be implanted directly into the brain. I didn't like the sound of that and nor, judging by the expressions I could see on the faces of those closest to me, expressions which were almost certainly mirrored elsewhere in the cafeteria, did the others. Already, several of them were muttering unhappily, though I couldn't make out what they were saying. But it wasn't hard to guess. I gulped at the thought of someone cutting my head open and putting something inside; it was bound to hurt - a lot. As if the tests WICKED subjected us to already weren't bad enough, they now planned to do something even worse, something that could potentially kill us.

"I know it sounds horrible," said Dr Leavitt, who must have seen that most of us weren't too thrilled by what we had just been told. "But I promise it won't hurt a bit. You might have a headache for a few days, but we can treat that with painkillers. We'll put you to sleep before the operation itself, so you won't be aware of what's happening. And it will mean we'll be able to monitor your vitals without you having to spend so much time in the laboratories, so I think you'll thank us in the long run. That's not so bad, is it?"

I was not altogether reassured by this statement.

As often happens when you are dreading something, the following morning, the morning when WICKED would cut our heads open and insert the devices Dr Leavitt had told us about, came all too quickly. We ate our breakfast in silence, trying not to think about what was to come, but none of us dawdled over the meal; doing so would only delay the inevitable. If WICKED wanted to put things in our heads, they would put things in our heads no matter how much we tried to stall them.

Presently, they started calling our names in groups of four, beginning with Miyoko, Patra, Sonya and Val; the owners of those names got up and left the cafeteria without looking back or even saying anything, their eyes all bearing the same look of resignation. The cafeteria gradually emptied until only a handful of girls remained, including Linda and myself, Flossie, Harriet and Indira having already been called. We sat in silence, trying to avoid looking at the door through which our friends had walked, knowing the time would soon come when we must follow them. Then came the moment we had been dreading since last night.

"Emily, Jenny, Linda and Tegan."

Linda and I exchanged a look which said: "Let's get this over with", then got up from our seats. Before we left the cafeteria, I looked around for the other two girls whose names had been called. Emily and Tegan. Yes, there they were. Tegan with her short dark hair and hazel eyes. Emily, fair-haired and green-eyed. They were inseparable, but that was all I really knew about them at this point. Other than that, I didn't even know how old they were, though they seemed to be a couple of years younger than me, making them seven years old or thereabouts. Seven years old. That meant they would have barely been toddling when the solar flares struck and would have no memories of the world as it had been before.

We left the cafeteria in silence, finding four unsmiling doctors waiting for us. They led us towards a lift and escorted us inside, where one of them pressed the button marked with a 9. The ninth floor. I had never visited it before and I had often wondered what it contained, but the only response I got when I asked one of the adults amounted to the fact that it "didn't concern me". Now, however, it looked as though it was going to concern me a great deal and it would also concern Linda, Emily, Tegan and all the other kids in this place. This must be where they were going to put the implants in our heads. For all Dr Leavitt had tried to reassure us, I was still scared and so, judging by the expressions on their faces, were the other three girls in the lift with me.

"How long have you been here?" I asked Emily and Tegan, hoping to distract them, and myself, from thoughts of the surgery to come.

"Since I was four," Emily replied. "My old name was Jessica, but they . . ." She broke off suddenly as her eyes welled up with tears and I needed no-one to tell me why. Someone must have used a pain stimulator on her to force her to stop calling herself Jessica and start calling herself Emily, just as Gates had used one on Flossie when she refused to give up her birth name, Caitlin. The ordeal had obviously left a lasting impression on Emily if merely mentioning her former name upset her so much.

Not knowing what to say, I turned to Tegan. "What about you?"

Before Tegan had time to reply, the lift came to a halt, the doors sliding open with a chiming sound. The doctors escorted us off the lift, past a front desk, through some glass partitions and along a seemingly endless hallway that was lined on either side by numbered doors, all of which were closed. Curtains had been drawn over the frosted glass walls, making it impossible to see what was happening inside the rooms. But this did nothing to shut out the sound of a child sobbing hysterically; it was coming from one of the rooms, though I couldn't tell who it was. I started towards the sound, only to find myself being held back by the doctor nearest to me, a woman with light brown hair.

"Just ignore that," she told me.

I tried, but it wasn't easy; the kid was obviously in a lot of distress. What were WICKED doing to us? Dr Leavitt had said the operation to place the implants in our heads wouldn't hurt, but what if he'd been lying? What if . . .? My thoughts were cut off abruptly as we arrived outside yet another door which, like all the other doors, had an electronic chart next to it. One of the doctors took a moment to study the chart, then opened the door. "Right," he said, turning to us. "Emily and Jenny, you're in this room." Then, before either Emily or myself had chance to resist, he and the female doctor who'd told me to ignore the crying child escorted us into the room. I heard Linda calling after me as the door was closed.

The room looked like one you would find in a hospital. Two beds stood side by side, both newly made up, both with open privacy curtains around them. They were surrounded by medical equipment designed to monitor the vitals of those who occupied the beds; I'd seen similar equipment in the laboratories when I underwent various tests. Except, from what Dr Leavitt had said, I wouldn't have to be tested so often after today; the implant which would shortly be placed in my head would make most of that unnecessary. All the same, I was still apprehensive about what was to come. WICKED were prepared to mess around with my brain and, though I was only nine years old, I knew this to be inherently dangerous. What if I didn't make it through the surgery? What if I . . .?

Just then, the doctor who'd opened the door turned to me. "It's time for me to start prepping you. Dr Geller . . ." He nodded towards his colleague. ". . . will attend to Emily's prep." He pulled a pale green hospital gown out of a drawer and handed it to me as Dr Geller gave Emily an identical gown. "You can get changed in the bathroom," he added, pointing to a nearby door. "The surgeon will be along shortly to take you to theatre."

Emily and I exchanged glances, then, sensing that we were not going to be allowed to put this off, we entered the bathroom. Still young enough not to have any inhibitions, we stripped off all our clothes and slipped on the gowns the doctors had given us; they came down to our knees and were held closed by fastenings at the back which neither of us could reach. I fastened Emily's gown and she did the same for me, in both cases leaving a rather embarrassing opening. Fighting the urge to giggle, we stepped out of the bathroom and stood before the two doctors as they inspected us. "Good," the doctor who was going to prep me said. "Get into bed and wait for the surgeon."

Soon, Emily and I were lying in the two beds - I had the one on the left - awaiting the moment when one of us would be taken to the operating theatre. We exchanged glances every so often, but did not speak; the doctors had given us some sort of medicine to make us drowsy in preparation for the surgery, so we were too tired to talk. My thoughts occasionally strayed to the other kids in this facility, the other kids who were being used as human guinea pigs, the other kids who were having these devices implanted in their heads. I tried to work out how many kids had had the operation already and how many were still waiting for their turn, but, before I could get very far, a man I'd never seen before walked into the room. This man was middle-aged and had dark hair which was thinning on top; he also had that look about him that positively screamed "medical expert". I'd encountered enough doctors over the past three years to know one when I saw one. He walked up to my bed and stood looking down at me.

"Hello, Jenny," he said, his voice betraying no hint of emotion. "I'm Dr Cullen, the surgeon for Group B."

"Are you going to put that thing in my head?" I asked, trying to disguise the tremor in my voice.

"Yes, but you'll be asleep while the procedure is carried out." Dr Cullen paused to consult a chart, then turned to the young woman who'd entered the room shortly after him, pushing a trolley before her. His assistant, I guessed. "Right. Let's get her transferred to the trolley." With that, he and the young woman lifted me between them and placed me on the wheeled stretcher which had been placed alongside my bed.

I don't remember much about being taken down to theatre, just a few vague impressions of Dr Cullen and his assistant talking as I was wheeled along the corridor. Words such as "killzone", "Immunes" and "Flare" occasionally reached my ears, but I was too out of it to take much notice. I felt as though I was in a world that had not been devastated by sun flares, a world where things like the Flare and WICKED did not exist, a world where I could just float away and leave my body behind . . .

I awoke to a blinding pain in my head, worse than anything I had ever experienced in my life. It felt like my brain was on fire; I was sure I was going to die, even wished I would just so I could be freed from this agony. Even the pain stimulators only inflicted a dull ache in comparison to this. What had happened to me? Why did my head hurt so much? Oh, yes. The implant. Dr Leavitt had said it might cause a headache, but I hadn't been prepared for anything like this. He must have lied to me, to all of us, promising the operation wouldn't hurt when he knew full well it would. This must be what that kid was crying about.

Somehow, through a fog of pain, I registered that Dr Cullen was in the room; I could hear his voice through the curtains which had been drawn around my bed. He was here for Emily, but I wasn't going to let him take her, not now I knew what this surgery entailed. I was going to make sure at least one of the kids in this place didn't have to suffer as I was suffering. Ignoring a shout from my doctor to stay where I was, I stumbled out of bed and drunkenly staggered over to the curtains, pushing them aside just in time to see Emily about to be wheeled down to theatre. I stumbled, still woozy from the drugs I'd been given; struggling to regain my feet, I shouted at Dr Cullen. "Leave her alone!" My words came out slurred, but it was enough to make him pause and turn round.

"It hurts!" I screamed. "My head! That thing you put in there! It's . . ." That was as far as I got before the two doctors who'd prepped Emily and myself ran forward to restrain me. I tried to break free from them, but there was no way a nine-year-old girl, even one who was not recovering from major surgery, could overpower two adults and they soon had me pinned to the floor. I felt the prick of a needle being inserted into my neck as something was injected into me. I could not see who had administered the injection, but it quickly ceased to matter as the world around me dissolved into a blur of colour and sound, before fading away completely.

The next thing I remember is waking up to find myself looking into the eyes of the doctor who'd prepped me for surgery. My head still ached, but not with the searing pain I'd experienced earlier; this felt like a normal, run-of-the-mill headache. "What . . . happened?" I managed to say. "Why did my head hurt so much before?" I reached up to feel my head, discovering in the process that someone had placed a bandage around it, something I hadn't been aware of when I woke up the first time. I guess I was in too much pain.

"You had a reaction to the anaesthetic," he told me. "It happens occasionally, but you're all right now. And you'll be pleased to know your surgery went well; the implant was inserted with no complications, so you should be up and about in no time. Meanwhile, I recommend you get some sleep."

After what I'd just been through, I was only too happy to obey. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift off.