She peeled the bandages away from my knuckles. No scabs, no bruises, no scars. As if it hadn’t happened. As if I’d never pounded my fist into the wall until the skin split down to the bone. I thought of Vosch appearing in my room completely healed, days after I smashed his nose and gave him two black eyes. And Sullivan, who told the story of Evan Walker torn apart by shrapnel and yet, somehow, hours later, able to infiltrate and take out an entire military installation by himself.
First they took Marika and made her Ringer. Now they’ve taken Ringer and “upgraded” her into someone completely different. Someone like them.
Or something.
There is no day or night anymore, only a constant sterile glow.
59
“WHAT HAVE THEY done to me?” I ask Razor one day when he carts in another inedible meal. I don’t expect an answer, but he’s expecting me to ask the question. It must strike him as weird that I haven’t.
He shrugs, avoiding my gaze. “Let’s see what’s on the menu today. Oooh. Meat loaf! Lucky duck.”
“I’m going to vomit.”
His eyes widen. “Really?” He looks around for the plastic upchuck container, desperate.
“Please, take the tray away. I can’t.”
He frowns. “They’ll pull the plug on you if you don’t get your shit together.”
“They could have done this to anyone,” I say. “Why did they do it to me?”
“Maybe you’re special.”
I shake my head and answer as if he were serious. “No. I think it’s because someone else is. Do you play chess?”
Startled: “Play what?”
“Maybe we could play. When I’m feeling better.”
“I’m more of a baseball guy.”
“Really? I would have guessed swimming. Or tennis.”
He cocks his head. His eyebrows come together. “You must be feeling bad. Making conversation like you’re halfway human.”
“I am halfway human. Literally. The other half . . .” I shrug. It coaxes out a grin.
“Oh, the 12th System is definitely theirs,” he says.
The 12th System? What did that mean exactly? I’m not sure, but I suspect it’s in reference to the eleven normal systems of the human body.
“We found a way to yank them out of Teds’ bodies and . . .” Razor trails off, gives the camera an abashed look. “Anyway, you have to eat. I overheard them talking about a feeding tube.”
“So that’s the official story? Like Wonderland: We’re using their technology against them. And you believe that.”
He leans against the wall, crosses his arms over his chest, and hums “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” I shake my head. Amazing. It isn’t that the lies are too beautiful to resist. It’s that the truth is too hideous to face.
“Commander Vosch is implanting bombs inside children. He’s turning kids into IEDs,” I tell him. He hums louder. “Little kids. Toddlers. They’re separated when they come in, aren’t they? They were at Camp Haven. Anyone younger than five is carted off and you never see them again. Have you seen any? Where are the children, Razor? Where are they?”
He stops humming long enough to say, “Shut up, Dorothy.”
“And does that make sense: loading up a Dorothy with superior alien technology? If command decided to ‘enhance’ people for the war, do you really think it would pick the crazy ones?”
“I don’t know. They picked you, didn’t they?” He grabs the tray of untouched food and heads for the door.
“Don’t go.”
He turns, surprised. My face is hot. The fever must be spiking. That has to be it.
“Why?” he asks.
“You’re the only honest person I have left to talk to.”
He laughs. It’s a good laugh, authentic, unforced; I like it, but I am feverish. “Who says I’m honest?” he asks. “We’re all enemies in disguise, right?”
“My father used to tell this story about six blind men and an elephant. One man felt the elephant’s leg and said an elephant must look like a pillar. Another felt the trunk and said an elephant must look like a tree branch. Blind guy number three felt the tail and said an elephant is like a rope. Fourth guy feels the belly: The elephant is like a wall. Fifth guy, ear: The elephant is shaped like a fan. Sixth guy, a tusk, so an elephant must be like a pipe.”
Razor stares at me stone-faced for a long moment, then smiles. It’s a good smile; I like it, too.
“That’s a beautiful story. You should tell it at parties.”
“The point is,” I tell him, “from the moment their ship appeared, we’ve all been blind men patting an elephant.”