Page 28 of The Program

‘Still here,’ I whispered to try and save my poor vocal chords from any more stress. It didn’t work. I had to swallow my saliva a few times just to get itout, but I struggled to produce enough liquid to help and ended up in another coughing fit.

I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, needing the confirmation so I could move past the panic and find a way to escape, but the sound of a mechanical door whooshing open followed by heavy booted footsteps had me snapping my jaw shut immediately.

‘Shit,’ Reece swore. ‘We’re out of time. They’re coming back.’

‘What do we do?’ I asked him, hoping he’d had enough time to figure out a plan while I was still unconscious.

‘Endure,’ he whispered. ‘Be strong and endure.’

That wasn’t a good answer. That wasn’t good at all.

My breathing had increased along with my heartrate when the footsteps became louder. Closer. Inside the room.

My head was still turned to face Reece and my energy was too low to try and move it again to face the newcomer, but it allowed me to see Reece’s reaction. His healthy pallor was already ridiculously pale, but this unhealthy one was sheet-white and he looked almost like a corpse when he rested wide, terror-filled eyes on whomever it was that had come to stand beside my metal table.

Definitely not good.

Plastic covered hands gripped my head and adjusted me so my nose was pointing at the ceiling and I could finally see. A man was leaning over me with an expression that could have been mistaken for kind and compassionate if it weren’t for the dead look in his beady little eyes. He was a Terran, and although his salt-and-pepper hair and gentle wrinkles in the corners of his eyes gave away his middle-aged status, he was an objectively attractive man. Skinny, tall, and handled me with gentle care, it was all fake. The chill that trickled up my spine was enough evidence for me to know that this man was pure evil.

‘Hello Miss Brin. There’s no need to be afraid. I’m a doctor, and I’m here to look over you and ensure your continued health,’ he said, his voice smooth like silk and his accent indicated a well-bred social status.

It didn’t escape my notice how he address me by name but refused to introduce himself. That could only mean one of two things: he was protecting his identity in case I revealed it to someone else, which would indicate Iwould have some level of freedom to converse with people of a high rank within his organisation, or he didn’t view me as someone worthy of his name. Unfortunately, I was leaning more towards the latter. If I had any sort of freedom I wouldn’t currently be strapped to a metal table. Metal tables were typically used for autopsies because they were easy to clean.

None of this was looking promising for me or Reece.

The process of de-personifying us had already begun.

‘I’m just going to check your vitals and your responses. You might feel a tightness over your arm or a pinch from a needle, but I promise to take good care of you. There’s nothing to worry about,’ he informed me, but I didn’t believe him. Sure, he might only be taking my vitals and checking my responses, but there wasdefinitelysomething to worry about. Plus, if there was a needle involved then he’d be taking blood. Why would he need my blood other than to run tests for his experiments?

Because that was the only reason we’d be here rather than in a prison cell. We were The Program’s newest subjects.

The doctor glanced at Reece, his expression dropping its compassionate mask. ‘I’ll get to you in a moment,rapist,’he spat.

I wanted to defend him but the words stuck in my throat as I felt the blood pressure cuff squeeze my arm. Then came the first pinch of a needle in the crook of my elbow. Soon enough, he had multiple vials of my blood stacked neatly in a rack on a trolley I’d missed before. He then moved on to checking my reflexes, flashing a light in my eyes to check my pupil response, and then stabbing my fingers and toes with a needle to assess my ability to feel.

When he was satisfied I felt another pinch of a needle, though this time instead of drawing blood I felt the distinct cold sensation of drugs being pushed into my system. The chill spread throughout my body, travelling through my veins. It was quickly chased by numbness that was followed by a dizzying exhaustion.

I managed to turn my head to make eye contact with Reece one last time before I succumbed to a drug-induced sleep.

CHAPTER 11

ARTEMIS

If I’d thought Karmella and her partner – who’s name I’d learned was Driselle – would mellow out with the birth of one of their babies, I was sorely mistaken. If anything, they were worse. Karmella was especially terrible. Her protectiveness over her new babyandher ready-to-pop partner had turned her almost rabid. If I hadn’t known she was a person I would have assumed her a wild animal with the way she bared her teeth and snarled at anyone who dared get too close.

Currently, she was huddled inside one of the cave’s tunnels that she’d claimed for her little family, hunched over in a crouch, cradling her baby girl against her chest and hissing at me and Libby. We’d come to drop off some food and water for them since they’d not come out of their little hidey-hole since yesterday, and we were getting concerned.

The general gossip was that Driselle had gone into labour and didn’t want to give birth around the rest of us. I understood that since I still wasn’t too keen on the others. Trust was still in the process of being built, but a lifetime in The Program squashed our ability to trust easily, especially with each other.

Competition between pairs wasn’t unheard of, and though Libby and I weren’t familiar with these women there were some duos that were and they were privy to conflict. It was how we’d been raised, after all. Personally, I was just glad that I didn’t have to live with any of the women I’d been pitted against in the past, especially considering the things the scientists had us do.

That was not a topic I was willing to reminisce over, however. Too much suffering. Too much guilt…

‘Okay, then. I’ll just leave this here…’ Libby drawled, warily bending down to place the bowls she was carrying at the base of the tunnel’s entrance. I followed suit, my movements slow and nonthreatening. She scampered back when we were close, her hissing turning into something resembling a warning growl that shocked me with its eery similarity to a particular large Earth feline. I wondered if perhaps that was due to her cybernetic enhancements. The scientists didn’t perform the same tests on all of us, nor did their tinkering react the same with our individually unique biologies.

I didn’t have the time to look into it further, but I set a mental reminder to learn everyone’s abilities. I would need to hack into The Program’s files for a more in-depth understanding of what they’d done to each of us and how it physically manifested. This train of thought also reminded me of my own situation, how leaving the nanites alone for two solars gave them enough time to reconfigure themselves and go rogue. I would need to monitor myself closely as well as the others to see if we experienced any side-effects.

This was unfamiliar territory for us all, and there was no guessing what we could expect until it happened.

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