Rebellion (25 page)

“Please don’t. Send me instead if you want, but please, please let him go.”

“It’s sweet of you to offer for his sake, but no.” Charlie walks over to the exit door. There’s a comm box on the wall, and he presses the Speak button. “Send Nurse Irene in with the B-strain.”

“She’s on her way,” a voice says through the speaker.

“Wonderful.” Charlie lets go of the button. When he turns around, I notice there’s a bloodstain on his uniform sleeve where I cut him with the nail earlier. I want to relish in the fact the stain might not even wash out, but I can’t.

All I can think about is the bomb inside Logan ripping him apart. In my head, he dies like Oliver, in a burst of fire. But Logan wouldn’t even get to float among the stars. His remains would mingle with the remains of all the other child workers.

I don’t want any of them to die. But I don’t have a way to save all of them—right now the only person I can save is Logan. And I will do anything.

“What do I have to do?” I ask Charlie in as calm a voice as I can manage.

“You will pledge your allegiance to me. You will agree to assist me in developing our attack plans against the fleet, and you will carry out my orders without any questions.”

The thought of working for him, of helping him make plans and pretending I respect his decisions, is more than I can bear. But I am out of options. My only hope is that he’s right about my “remarkable genes,” and I will come up with better attack maneuvers Charlie will approve that won’t involve killing thousands of innocents.

“I swear,” I say without hesitation.

“A nurse is bringing an injection over. You will take it without a struggle.”

My skin prickles all over. There’s the catch. “You’re going to put a Stryker in me.”

“Actually,” Charlie says, “I’m referring to a submission serum my scientists have been developing—a special formula created just for you, with a new base ingredient. You won’t be allergic to this one. You can thank Beechy for helping us get the formula right. He was an excellent test subject.”

It feels like there’s a block of ice stuck in my throat. He wants to subdue me; he wants to invade my mind. It’s never worked before—before, his serum gave me a headache and fever so strong, I was afraid I was going to die.

Turning me into one of the mindless will be even worse. I’ve seen it; I remember Oliver with his muddled, foggy eyes, how he attacked me and Beechy when we found him guarding Charlie’s bomb. When my other friend I made in the Core, Ariadne, was under its influence, she let Sam kiss her and do things she never would’ve agreed to do if she were in her right mind.

If Charlie’s right and he’s perfected this new formula, I might change my mind and decide his plan to kill all the child workers for the sake of the rest of us is pure perfection. Even if some part of me still knows it’s wrong, I will go along with it anyway. I will follow his orders without question. I will lose my free will.

“My terms are nonnegotiable,” Charlie says. “Either you agree to both of them, or I’ll make sure Logan is in the first batch of child workers delivered to the Surface. And I will make sure he doesn’t come back.”

On the operating table, Logan is struggling again. The water trickling from his eyes is visible from here, and he looks like he’s trying to spit out the tube, but it’s too far down his throat.

“You’ll take out Logan’s Stryker if I agree?” I ask.

“Yes, once you’ve taken the serum. You have my word.”

I don’t want to let him give me any injection. But if I don’t, it’s not like he’ll let me go free—he’ll lock me in a cell, and I won’t be able to do anything while he puts Logan and all the others on the Surface to die. At least if I agree to help him and let him subdue me, there’s still a chance I can fight the injection afterwards. There’s still a chance I can regain my will and find a way to stop him.

Really, what choice do I have?

The door opens, and the nurse enters. She’s carrying a plastic tray with a small stack of gauze, an antiseptic patch, and two syringes, each in an individual plastic wrapper.

“Here’s the B-strain serum, Commander Charlie, sir,” the nurse says.

One prick and all this will be over. I might not even remember it happened.

“Perfect,” Charlie says. “Prep to administer the injection. Let’s do this quickly, please.”

The nurse sets the tray on the counter beside the sink. She’s already wearing gloves, so she picks up the antiseptic patch and steps over to me. Dean pulls my left sleeve up over my shoulder. The nurse dabs my skin with the wet patch, humming as she works.

I can’t watch her do this. I stare at Logan and picture how his body will finally relax once the surgeon takes the tube out of his throat. I don’t think he’ll be happy when he finds out what I did, though. He won’t forgive me for taking this serum willingly, even though I’m doing it to save his life.

There’s a ripping sound as the nurse tears the plastic off a syringe. When she turns around, the needle glints in the light.

I blink and the glint of light turns blue, like the lights in Karum.

“Wait,” I say.

The nurse pauses with the needle an inch from my shoulder.

I can’t let another doctor or nurse give me a shot. Not ever again.

Charlie’s eyes are narrowed.

“Can I do it myself?” I ask. “It’ll be easier.”

“You won’t use it as a weapon?”

“No, I’ll take the shot—I have to save Logan. Please, just let me do it myself.”

Charlie’s lips thin slightly, full of distrust, but then he nods. “Uncuff her,” he says to Dean.

Dean releases my arms, unlocks my shackles, and slips them off. I rub my sore wrists before turning to face the nurse. She holds out the syringe to me.

I slip my fingers around it and take it from her. The glass casing feels cool in my grip, lighter than I expected. The liquid inside the barrel is silver.

I position the syringe above my left shoulder. All I have to do is push the needle in, press the plunger, and the surgeon will take Logan’s tube out. Charlie will let him live.

Gritting my teeth, I focus on the syringe again, making sure my thumb is ready on the plunger. I have to do this fast, before I change my mind. I’ll find some way to fight the submission—I know it.

Before I can change my mind, I push the needle through my skin. It spreads an ache through my shoulder and neck, but it hardly bothers me; I’ve felt much worse. I press the plunger all the way down. The silver liquid slowly empties from the syringe. Charlie watches with a small smile.

When the syringe is empty, I pull it out and drop it. It makes a small clink when it hits the floor.

23

“Very good,” Charlie says.

“Tell the surgeon to stop,” I say.

Turning away, he walks over to the door leading to the operating room and opens it. When the door shuts behind him, I can’t hear the command he gives the surgeon. But a nurse says something that looks like, “Yes, sir,” and the surgeon begins removing the tube.

My throat sticks when I swallow. I don’t know how long it will take for the serum to start working.

I look down at my hands, and my legs and feet below them. There’s no slow spread of fire through my body, like I would feel if my allergy were kicking in and making me dizzy with fever. But there is something else: a dull pounding in my temple; a hammering inside my eardrums. Charlie beckons to me from the other side of the glass. He wants me to join him.

As I push through the door, the world tilts a little, and the edges of my vision blur.
Is this what it feels like?

But I blink a few times, and the world rights itself. So I keep walking. Lieutenant Dean follows me, even though he doesn’t need to. I’m not going to run anymore.

In the operating room, Logan’s coughing loudly as the last of the tube lifts out of his mouth. Phlegm and bile drip from the end of the tube, which the surgeon hands to a nurse to take away.

Logan notices me as I walk forward, and tries to turn his head against his restraint.

“Clem,” he chokes, “what are you doing here?”

The glass wall is shaded on this side, too dark to see through, so he couldn’t have seen me standing there. He didn’t have any idea I was here.

I want to tell Logan I took Charlie’s injection, and I’m sorry, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I did it to save him. But I don’t think Charlie would want me to tell him that, and I have to do what Charlie wants. I have to keep Logan safe.

“I’m sorry they hurt you, Logan,” I say. “But everything’s going to be okay now.” My tongue feels thick and heavy in my mouth, like cotton. Almost like it doesn’t belong there.

The hammering picks up inside my head.

“She and I just made an arrangement,” Charlie says. “She’ll follow my orders in exchange for saving your life. Won’t you, Clementine?”

“Of course.” My mouth curves upward in a smile. But I didn’t tell my mouth to smile.

It’s starting: I am losing control of my body.

“You are loyal to me, aren’t you, Clementine?”

“I will always be loyal to the Developers,” I say automatically. The smile remains on my face like it’s been stuck there. I can’t make it budge no matter how hard I try.

Alarm sweeps through Logan’s eyes. “What did you do to her?”

“She did this to herself,” Charlie says, not hiding his delight. “A nurse handed her the syringe, but she stuck the needle in and pressed the plunger.”

I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have given Charlie my mind.

“Change her back. Give her an antidote.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. The serum isn’t poison.”

“I’ll kill you,” Logan spits, struggling against his restraints. “The second I get my hands free.”

“I have a feeling Clementine might stop you.” Commander Charlie glances at me, that same expectancy in his eyes.

“You can’t kill him,” my mouth says without my permission. “He’s going to save you. You should thank him.”

“The surgeon’s going to remove the bomb from your esophagus lining,” Commander Charlie says. “I’m afraid I can’t let you roam the Core free, but you’ll be given a nice cell. Clementine can visit you as long as you cooperate.”

“She’s not Clementine,” Logan says through gritted teeth.

“She’s more obedient, is all,” Commander Charlie says. “Clementine, why don’t you help the nurses put him under for his operation?”

My feet move automatically, walking around to the other side of the table. I can’t make them stop.

I can’t move my legs. I can’t move my hands. I can’t move my arms.

The panic inside me makes me feel like I’m suffocating. But I have to stay calm. I knew this would happen; I knew what I was getting into.

I did this to save Logan.

One of the nurses directs me to the sink at the back of the room to wash my hands. I turn the water on, wet my hands, and scrub them with soap. Layers of grime and dust from the Crust camp swirl in a dark funnel down the drain.

When I’m finished, I dry my hands with a paper towel and pull on a pair of gloves. I walk back to the operating table. “What next?” my lips ask, though I didn’t tell them to say anything at all.

The nurse points me to a clear mask on the tray of medical tools. The mask is connected by a thick white tube to a machine in the wall. A similar mask was used to put me under, when I had my operation here in the Core, so I remember what the nurses did. I pick up the mask and step over to Logan, while one of the nurses goes over to the wall to turn on the sleeping gas once the mask is on properly.

My hands feel unsteady, but I don’t think it’s visible. The part of my brain that has control over me isn’t frightened of what’s happening; it is obedient.

The other nurse moves to Logan’s other side and sets a hand on his forehead to keep him still. His eyes water as I lift the mask over his mouth and nose.

Please, don’t cry,
I want to tell him. But my lips are dead and useless, no longer my own.

“Why are you helping him?” he whispers before I press the edges of the mask against his skin. He doesn’t sound mad anymore; he sounds lost and defeated.

He was going to kill you otherwise. I didn’t have a choice.

“Don’t worry,” is all my lips say. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”

A tear slides down his cheek. “You’re wrong,” he says through the mask.

All of this is wrong. I should’ve been smarter and found a way to overpower Charlie before he could put me in this situation, before he could threaten to kill Logan.

When I’m sure the mask is secure, I tell the nurse by the wall, and she presses the button to start the gas.

Slowly, Logan’s eyelids droop until they close. The tear on his cheek slides down the side of his face and settles on his ear.

The nurse switches off the gas. “You can remove the mask,” she says sweetly.

I do as she says, taking the mask away and setting it back on the tray. Logan’s lips remain slightly parted, stretched from the tool that was holding them open earlier. His arms hang limp at his sides, and his chest rises and falls at a more normal pace.

At least he’s not panicking anymore, and he’s not in pain. Soon the bomb will be removed from his chest.

“Let’s leave them to their work, Clementine,” Charlie says as I move away to let the nurses and surgeon take over.

“You’re welcome, sir,” I say automatically.

I don’t want to leave. I want to make sure the nurses do as Charlie promised.

But my body turns without hesitation, and I turn and follow him back through the door. Dean trails behind us. The nurse is still waiting in the smaller room. Commander Charlie walks to the tray with the stack of gauze and the extra syringe still on it.

“This particular form of the serum currently wears off in a much shorter amount of time than the previous formula,” he says, and glances at his time-band. “It’s eleven o’clock now. You’ll need to readminister the serum in twenty-four hours, and again twenty-four hours after that, and so on. I’ll have a nurse bring you more tomorrow.”

He holds the tray out to me. I pick up the syringe and tuck it inside my hand, and my lips form another smile for him. “I’ll make sure to give myself a shot in twenty-four hours.”