Chapter Three: Seizures
It had only been about three weeks since Jace had died. Three weeks...that's not a very long time. It was too soon. We weren't ready.
Jack had been having seizures a lot lately. I mean, we all had them, but he was getting them more and more often, and the intensity of them was increasing every time. We'd been doing our best to hide him when he was having a seizure, and it had been working fine. By this point, we had no illusions about what they would do to him if they took him away, which is exactly what they'd do if they ever realized what was going on.
On this particular day though, there was nothing we could do. We had been lined up listening to Lydecker giving us our orders for our mission. Ironically, I think it was an Escape and Evade exercise. Anyways, Jack was starting to shake. We could all see that. Lydecker was pacing so he had his back to us a lot and didn't notice. But we did. Jack's shaking was getting worse by the minute. I remember I was just praying that he'd last a little bit longer. Long enough for Lydecker to have finished, and the exercise to have started so that we would have been in the woods. It...it just wasn't meant to be. As soon as I saw the raven in the tree, my prayer to the Blue Lady died instantly. On the outside, I appeared to be the good little soldier standing at attention...on the inside...on the inside I was panicking.
Jack's seizures were increasing in force. I think, on some level, he must have known. He must have known that this was it...that he'd be in the good place by the end of the day. That didn't make it any easier for me though...knowing that. When the seizures became too violent, he collapsed. I remember my heart almost leaping out of my chest and then nearly stopping. I was thinking 'Not another one. Not so soon.' There was nothing we could do. We couldn't have hidden him. Not that time. Another ten minutes...five even and he would have been home free. We would have been in the forest. Plenty of places to have hidden him there. But then again, the raven was a bad omen, wasn't it? I should have known.
Lydecker had seen him. Nothing. Not a twitch. He hadn't even reacted, except to order a couple of the norm soldiers nearby to take Jack away. So calm...so cold. Heartless. Jack had been lying there shaking like he had been hit with a bunch of tasers, and Lydecker didn't even blink an eye. Nothing. Then again, not one of us had blinked either. Though, unlike Lydecker, we were all hurting inside. None of us wanted to lose another sibling so soon.
I remember wanting to scream...to scream at the top of my lungs with the injustice of it all. We hadn't chosen this life. Lydecker and Vivadyne Research had made us, obviously without our consent. They were the reason we existed. It wasn't fair. But then again...neither is life. Lydecker had acted as if he didn't care. And in that moment...in that fraction of second, I realized he never had. To him, we were weapons. Tools to be used in combat, representing billions of dollars in R&D. That was the day I stopped tolerating anything and everything Manticore except my siblings.
After Jack was taken away, we completed our exercise like good little soldiers, and did all the usual routine things...but it wasn't the same. Jack wasn't there. He had been the oldest after Zack. We had looked up to him, and all of the sudden he was gone, and he wasn't going to come back.
Later that night, after the rest of us were asleep, Max, being the non- sleeper that she i...was, the non-sleeper that she was, snuck out of the barracks. She saw what they did to him. She saw him on a steel table with doctors all around him...cutting him up...trying to figure out what had gone wrong, like he was some machine they could fix. I remember her telling us that the doctors had been experimenting on him like he hadn't been a person, a child. Like he had never been anyone, and I guess to them, he never had been.
Things weren't the same after that...Gee, I wonder why? Yeah, I guess it's a bit of a given that things weren't the same...I mean, we'd lost two of our siblings in a span of less than a month. That was too much. We couldn't handle it. I guess after we'd bonded and gotten to know each other, we figured they'd leave us alone. No more siblings being taken away. No more siblings who we'd never see again. Obviously we were wrong. So much for our theory about being together until the end...well sort of...I guess we were together until the end in some ways. It just wasn't the end we'd planned on. Anyways, the bottom line was that we had decided that we weren't going to lose any more of our siblings. We didn't know what we were going to do, but, as cliché as it sounds, we knew we were going to do something.
It had only been about three weeks since Jace had died. Three weeks...that's not a very long time. It was too soon. We weren't ready.
Jack had been having seizures a lot lately. I mean, we all had them, but he was getting them more and more often, and the intensity of them was increasing every time. We'd been doing our best to hide him when he was having a seizure, and it had been working fine. By this point, we had no illusions about what they would do to him if they took him away, which is exactly what they'd do if they ever realized what was going on.
On this particular day though, there was nothing we could do. We had been lined up listening to Lydecker giving us our orders for our mission. Ironically, I think it was an Escape and Evade exercise. Anyways, Jack was starting to shake. We could all see that. Lydecker was pacing so he had his back to us a lot and didn't notice. But we did. Jack's shaking was getting worse by the minute. I remember I was just praying that he'd last a little bit longer. Long enough for Lydecker to have finished, and the exercise to have started so that we would have been in the woods. It...it just wasn't meant to be. As soon as I saw the raven in the tree, my prayer to the Blue Lady died instantly. On the outside, I appeared to be the good little soldier standing at attention...on the inside...on the inside I was panicking.
Jack's seizures were increasing in force. I think, on some level, he must have known. He must have known that this was it...that he'd be in the good place by the end of the day. That didn't make it any easier for me though...knowing that. When the seizures became too violent, he collapsed. I remember my heart almost leaping out of my chest and then nearly stopping. I was thinking 'Not another one. Not so soon.' There was nothing we could do. We couldn't have hidden him. Not that time. Another ten minutes...five even and he would have been home free. We would have been in the forest. Plenty of places to have hidden him there. But then again, the raven was a bad omen, wasn't it? I should have known.
Lydecker had seen him. Nothing. Not a twitch. He hadn't even reacted, except to order a couple of the norm soldiers nearby to take Jack away. So calm...so cold. Heartless. Jack had been lying there shaking like he had been hit with a bunch of tasers, and Lydecker didn't even blink an eye. Nothing. Then again, not one of us had blinked either. Though, unlike Lydecker, we were all hurting inside. None of us wanted to lose another sibling so soon.
I remember wanting to scream...to scream at the top of my lungs with the injustice of it all. We hadn't chosen this life. Lydecker and Vivadyne Research had made us, obviously without our consent. They were the reason we existed. It wasn't fair. But then again...neither is life. Lydecker had acted as if he didn't care. And in that moment...in that fraction of second, I realized he never had. To him, we were weapons. Tools to be used in combat, representing billions of dollars in R&D. That was the day I stopped tolerating anything and everything Manticore except my siblings.
After Jack was taken away, we completed our exercise like good little soldiers, and did all the usual routine things...but it wasn't the same. Jack wasn't there. He had been the oldest after Zack. We had looked up to him, and all of the sudden he was gone, and he wasn't going to come back.
Later that night, after the rest of us were asleep, Max, being the non- sleeper that she i...was, the non-sleeper that she was, snuck out of the barracks. She saw what they did to him. She saw him on a steel table with doctors all around him...cutting him up...trying to figure out what had gone wrong, like he was some machine they could fix. I remember her telling us that the doctors had been experimenting on him like he hadn't been a person, a child. Like he had never been anyone, and I guess to them, he never had been.
Things weren't the same after that...Gee, I wonder why? Yeah, I guess it's a bit of a given that things weren't the same...I mean, we'd lost two of our siblings in a span of less than a month. That was too much. We couldn't handle it. I guess after we'd bonded and gotten to know each other, we figured they'd leave us alone. No more siblings being taken away. No more siblings who we'd never see again. Obviously we were wrong. So much for our theory about being together until the end...well sort of...I guess we were together until the end in some ways. It just wasn't the end we'd planned on. Anyways, the bottom line was that we had decided that we weren't going to lose any more of our siblings. We didn't know what we were going to do, but, as cliché as it sounds, we knew we were going to do something.