Chapter Eighteen
The scratches on Seven's right hand closed up, sending dull throbs of pain every time she twitched her fingers, but the bullet wound through her left arm refused to heal. The toilet paper wound around her arm fell off in crusty red flakes, and the seeping wound, exposed to the air, burned as drops of blood trickled through her fur. A small, spattered red spot grew on the floor next to her chair. She wanted to get up from the chair and find some gauze, but she couldn't make her legs move. Exhaustion settled over her shoulders like a lead coat, hunching her over in the chair. Every muscle ached down to her bones, each breath tasted of bile, and each beat of her heart felt as though her ribs were splitting apart.
Whether five minutes or five hours passed before the magneton flew back into the room, she could not say. Seven only saw it when it flew up to her face and nudged her into an upright position with one of its magnets. The chair twisted beneath her as it was tugged towards the magnetic pokemon, but with her lacerated right hand, she held it in place.
The Grunts, led by Fisher, entered the room with their guns raised. First, they scoured the warehouse, cracking open the crates and spilling the contents onto the floor. Pokeballs tumbled out of one crate, two held semi-automatic rifles of assorted caliber and shape, and another contained bricks of C4 packed in bubble wrap.
The Grunts entered the break room, garage, and two offices in pairs. Only when each pair called out did Fisher walk in and ordered the guns down. He walked over to Seven with one hand on his pistol and flung the helmet off his face. His blonde hair hung in sweaty, limp curls, and his scar shone in the flickering fluorescent light.
"I lost eight men today," Fisher said, leaning over her. "I thought for sure it would be nine. How the fuck did you survive?"
Seven forced herself to stare into his eyes. They were two still ponds, but unfocused, as if he wasn't seeing her in the chair.
"I stole a uniform off a guard. Hid the body in a vent."
"Did anyone notice the bullet holes?"
Seven held up her knife. The metal, once a gleaming gray, was sticky and brown from dried blood, with a pink smudge at the tip. The blade was stuck out from all the blood that seeped into the hilt.
Admin Fisher pried the knife from her numb fingers and held it up in the light. "Not bad," he said. "How many did you kill?"
Seven tried to remember, but her head spun. "I don't know. Five, at least. No, eight."
The Admin nodded, but his lips didn't twitch. "Good."
Seven swallowed and added, "I also stabbed this short guy. Got him in the shoulder, but I think he'll live."
Admin Fisher kept nodding, and then he stopped. "Wait, a short guy?" There was fire in his voice as he gripped her shoulders. "What color was his hair?"
Seven tried to speak, but she was interrupted by a fit of coughing. When she looked at the hand she covered her mouth with, she was afraid at first that she coughed up blood, but looking closer, she saw it was only the cuts opening up again.
"Gray," she finally managed to say. "It was gray."
"Where? Here?"
Seven pointed at the pool of blood on the floor. In the few minutes it sat on the floor, it had already congealed into a cracked brown smear.
Admin Fisher followed a trail of red drops to the garage and cursed. Then he came back and kicked at the pile of C4, flinging a white lump across the room.
"Get a detonator set up. I don't want a scrap of this place left after we leave, got it? The rest of you, take everything we can carry, starting with the pokemon."
A Grunt sorted through the explosives while the others called out their pokemon. Fisher's aggron hefted a whole crate over its shoulders, spilling a trail of pokeballs with each ponderous footstep. A vigoroth followed behind and stuffed every dropped ball into a garbage bag. A crobat flew out with a bulging bag clutched in its legs, the kecleon carried two armfuls of rifles, and four machoke each took a corner of a train car. The corrugated metal groaned as they carted it out a garage door.
Fisher looked around the warehouse and gave approving nods at the loads everyone took. Then he saw Seven, still seated in the chair.
"What the hell are you sitting around for? Help us move this shit or we're leaving you here with the C4."
The hair on the back of Seven's neck stood, but the rest of her body refused to rise from the chair. Though she strained until her right arm shook and pushed with all her might with her legs, she couldn't move an inch.
"Too tired. I just… need a minute."
"Don't give me any of that crap." Fisher grabbed her left arm, just below the bullet wound. Seven hissed and yanked away, nearly falling off the chair. Fisher's hand came away sticky with blood. He rubbed the blood between his fingers, tested its stickiness, and moved to her right side.
"Come on," he said, raising her right arm over his shoulder, "Let's get you on a table."
Seven's head swam as Fisher lifted her out of the chair. The warehouse spun in pale gray swirls flecked with red and green spots, and darkness crept around the edges of her vision. She felt her hold on her power slipping, and with all her might, she tightened her grip around the slippery, glass-like sensation brooding in her head.
Halfway to one of the offices, she felt the knife in her hand work free of the toilet paper wrappings. Each step jarred her numb fingers apart, and inch by inch, the knife wriggled free, clinging to her hand only by a few blood-smeared strands of hair. She reached for it, but trying to move even her fingers made her grasp on her illusion more tenuous.
Forced to choose between the knife or her disguise, for one moment she almost let the illusion slip, but she realized she didn't even have the strength to raise her arm, let alone kill the Admin. The knife clattered to the floor. The blade dully chimed as it struck the concrete. Fisher glanced back at it but didn't stop.
Fisher kicked the office door open and, with one leg, swept the computer, keyboard, and piles of papers off of a desk. Then he swept Seven's legs out from beneath her and gently set her down. The flat wooden surface felt ice cold against her back.
He unwrapped a roll of gauze and peered closely at her arm. "Where's the wound?"
Before Seven could answer or try to alter her illusion, which hid the bleeding hole, Fisher's fingers probed her arm, following the trail of slick blood until his finger brushed the wound. Seven yelped and wrenched her arm away, but the pain that crackled up her arm like static broke her concentration. Her illusion shattered, exposing her matted, bloody fur. Fisher flinched back and reached for his pistol. Seven tried to roll behind the desk, but her body refused to budge. No matter how much she struggled, a tangle of unseen chains pinned her to the desk.
Seven's eyes burned. She struggled to keep herself from crying, but even that was beyond her strength. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring Fisher into an ominous gray ghost looming over her, and then the tears trickled down her cheeks, stained faint red by the blood caked around her mouth. Then the light faded, and Seven fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.
When Seven woke again, the harsh blue light overhead blinded her. Tears came to her eyes again, and as they ran down her cheeks, she remembered. She blinked furiously until her eyes adjusted. A bright white ceiling dotted with lights loomed high above her. Vents in the corners noisily pumped cool air into the room. The far wall was bare, the one on the right had a thick metal door, and on the left, computer monitors plastered every surface like glowing wallpaper. Images and numbers flashed in a dizzying flood of information, but a photo of the wound, stitched up and surrounded by black fur, showed her it was her medical charts.
Seven tried to stand. At first, she thought leather straps held her down on the bed, but when she turned her head, nothing visibly held her down. Then she looked up again and recognized the same blue glow that pinned her inches from freedom at Atheros Labs.
It's all over, she thought. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the pillow. Though it felt comfortable and warm, she would've traded it for a slab of concrete anywhere else in the world.
The door slid aside, and Admin Celeste entered. Her blonde hair was tucked underneat a hairnet, and goggles shielded her blue eyes. Instead of her jacket, she wore pale blue scrubs, and her latex gloves squeaked every time she moved her fingers.
"You're awake," she said.
"Yes, Admin Celeste," Seven said reflexively. She gritted her teeth at how easily the old habits came back.
Celeste tapped one of the monitors on the wall. Seconds later, the blue light turned off. Seven didn't feel any different, but the paralysis was gone. She sat up and looked at her arms. Her right hand had around fifty stitches for all the cuts, and the left arm had an angry red scar in the middle of a bare square patch where fur once grew. The skin underneath looked pale, like grubworms, against the black of her fur.
"Can you stand?"
Seven swung her legs off the bed and tested her weight on them. They felt stiff, but not shaky.
"How does your arm feel?"
Seven gingerly reached for the scar, tracing her finger over its ridged scab and blood-soaked stitches.
"I don't feel any pain."
"Good. I was worried the anesthetics wouldn't work." Celeste adjusted her glasses and turned towards the screens. "I used to do this stuff more often, before I became Admin." She smiled without looking at Seven. "Well, on humans, anyways. I suppose I missed it."
Seven glanced around the room. On a metal tray standing next to her bed, there was a roll of gauze, a pan of ethanol, three tiny slivers of glass, a pliers, and a scalpel. Seven reached for the scalpel and stopped, telling herself it wouldn't do any good to resist.
After Seven took her hand away, Celeste turned around and said, "Good, you're not stupid." She picked up the scalpel and pressed the blade against her thumb. The metal bent backwards, forming a lopsided disc along the contour of her thumb. "Giovanni will speak with you now. Make yourself presentable."
Celeste took a plastic bin out from underneath the bed. A new Grunt's uniform, tailored to her shape, was neatly folded inside. Seven put the clothes on, taking extra care to make sure the shirt didn't snag on her stitches, and hid her face behind the illusion of Steven Sun.
Celeste gave a quick nod. "Good. Let's go."
Fisher was standing next to the door, outside the room. He regarded her with a blank stare, and his scar seemed like a second frown on his face.
"Good, you're up. You were out cold for five days."
Fisher led the way, and Celeste took the rear. Seven plodded in between them, facing forward and staring at nothing, too absorbed in her growing dread to take in her surroundings. To Seven, it felt like they walked for hours, but as they passed the four doors of the Admins and approached Giovanni's room, she wished it had lasted even longer. Though her illusion seemed calm and impassive, she trembled underneath.
Then, with a single meaty knock from Fisher's fist, the door swung open. Seven took a deep breath, bowed her head, and walked inside.
This chapter was edited as of 10/9/17. A small detail was changed for continuity purposes later in the story.