Voice (7 page)

“That’s good,” typed Heidi after taking back the device. “We can use that to keep him from arguing when I take over your protection permanently. That slime shouldn’t have been alone with you in the first place.” She rested her left hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Jemma shrugged, not sure how else to respond. “Okay, you do your thing in here. They won’t let me get away with leaving the room, but I can turn to face the door, at least, which I’d guess is more than you’ve been getting since you got back.”

***

By the time they got to the lab, Jemma felt safer than she had since arriving back at the facility. She knew Heidi was limited in what she could do, but at least the woman wouldn’t let Jemma be harmed if she could help it.

In the lab, Josh stood next to the seated Dr. Harris, as she’d come to expect. Instead of waiting by the door, though, Heidi came to stand on the other side of Jemma’s chair. As Jemma sat, she thought she saw a look of relief on Dr. Harris’s face. Josh, meanwhile, just rolled his eyes in Heidi’s direction.

“How are you doing today, Jemma?” typed Dr. Harris, handing her both paper and crayon.

She blinked at him before she responded.

My head never stops hurting. It feels a bit like a stretched out rubber band from getting the drug over and over every day. I want to go home.

His face closed off before he typed, and Jemma pushed away any regret for her honesty. She was human, a real person, not just a subject, and it was important he remember that. “We’ve checked the scans repeatedly. There’s been no permanent damage. I’m sorry there’s pain with the testing, but the testing is crucial.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “We’ll be trying another drug today. Joshua has finished adjusting it so there should be no adverse side effects.”

“She just told you she’s barely tolerating one drug,” typed Heidi, “and you want to give her another one on top of that?”

“While I appreciate your expertise in escorting Jemma and the other subjects, you are not trained in any medical or scientific fields, are you?” Dr. Harris raised an eyebrow. Between his almost smug expression and his words, he reminded her of Josh for the first time, and Jemma could finally understand why Heidi had disliked him so much initially.

Heidi remained quiet, and Dr. Harris nodded at Josh, who hesitated only slightly before moving between Jemma and Heidi to inject her with first the expansive drug, then the one Jemma dreaded despite her hope to learn more through it. Josh smirked at Jemma as he moved back to his place.

“You will be communicating with only April today,” typed Dr. Harris, and Josh winked.

Had something happened to Jack? Surely Josh wouldn’t be in such a good mood if Jack had escaped or if he was merely not communicating for the day. Jemma forced herself to calm back down, and Josh took the opportunity to connect her to the monitor before the drugs could kick in all the way.

Already, her mind had expanded, the feeling almost familiar after less than a week, if not anywhere near comfortable. Jemma was pretty sure the sensation of her brain spilling out of her head would never be a comfortable one.

She tensed as she waited for the painful crawling of needles across her brain.

Instead, when the new drug finally kicked in, she relaxed, her head dipping forward so suddenly that Heidi reached out to catch her. She shook her head, smiling reassurance at the guard, then looked toward Josh, who was smiling back at her, pride on his face, his arms crossed.

Sorry
, she wrote, squinting at the paper, still smiling.
It just took me by surprise. It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.

For the first time in weeks, Jemma was completely without pain. She still felt a little dizzy, and she suspected something in the drug was affecting her mood, as well. Either that or her body was reacting to the sudden lack of pain. Whichever the cause, she couldn’t completely wipe the smile from her face, not even at the look of obvious concern from Heidi, the caution from Dr. Harris.

Subject is acting unusually
, she picked up from him as she swayed in his direction.
Doesn’t seem to be having the same adverse reaction as last time. Suspect Joshua included more than he disclosed in the adjusted formula.

At the mention of Josh, Jemma looked at the man, who was still smiling, that particular smile that usually set her hairs on end.
Look at her. It’s working. She’ll be able to do so much and she won’t be able to complain about the pain anymore. No more interrupted sessions just because Harris can’t take seeing her hurting.
His face seemed to blur, and Jemma frowned, shifting her attention to Heidi.

Don’t know how much longer I can keep watching things like this. Keep doing my job.
Heidi’s face was blurred, too, and Jemma closed her eyes.

“Are you still all right to continue, Jemma?” She was pretty sure the speaker was Dr. Harris’s, and she nodded.

Maybe I should make sure there’s an accident with the cure. It isn’t like they can’t make another one in a few weeks, not with my help. Days, if I actually tried.

Impressions still, not really words, some of the thoughts almost came with pictures, if she focused, but it made her even dizzier.

“April should be contacting you soon. With the secondary medication, we’ll start with a baseline, seeing how your connection measures, and then we’ll move to trying to enhance the connection further.” Jemma nodded again, feeling her head wobble, fighting a giggle at the sensation.

She wished Jack were here with her.

Wait, no, she didn’t. And she was worried about him, too. She frowned, trying to wrangle her thoughts. Once she concentrated, she found them falling back into place.

What was that she’d heard about destroying the cure?

“Hey, Jemma, you there?”

“I’m here, April.” She winced at the slur in her mental tone. “They’ve got me all drugged up. Jack isn’t joining us, though.”

“I know. Jasmine said they couldn’t find him this morning when they went to take him to his session.”

Relief, almost as strong as she’d felt when the pain stopped, washed through her. Jack was okay. He’d made it. He’d escaped, yet again.

“I don’t think they want me to know that,” she sent.

“I won’t mention I said anything, then. I kinda made you sound all ditzy the first time Jasmine asked what we talked about, so she stopped asking.”

Jemma felt herself smile, and she opened her eyes to make sure nobody watching could tell she’d find out about Jack.

She blinked.

She could barely see. The edges of her vision were completely black. The center of her vision was blurry, the same level of blurriness she’d been trying to blink away earlier.

She blinked again, then shook her head, fighting panic.

Subject showing signs of distress.

What now?

I can’t do this.

“Jemma, are you okay?” She thought it might have been Dr. Harris asking, but she wasn’t sure anymore. It felt like Heidi had moved to stand between her and Josh, putting all three of the others in the room roughly on the same side of her, which meant all their speakers came from the same direction, too.

She shook her head, pointing to her eyes.

Subject seems to have severe head pain again.

She closed her eyes, refusing to react to what she’d picked up, focusing instead on contacting April as panic cleared the drug’s dulling effects on her mind. “Tell Jasmine I can’t see, that she needs to let Dr. Harris know. I’m almost blind at the edges, blurry in the center.”

“Shit, Jemma. Okay, I’m passing it on.”

Silence. Jemma kept her eyes closed, waiting.

“She’s lost most of her eyesight. Jemma, are you in pain?”

She shook her head.

“Yeah, trust me, I made sure she wasn’t going to be in any pain on that particular formula.” That had to be Josh.

“You put a pain blocker in there?” asked one fuzzy speaker.

“How was she supposed to be aware of further damage to alert us if she was unable to feel pain?” asked another.

“Come on, we kept having to stop because she was passing out from the pain, but the scans weren’t showing any real damage.”

“They might now, Joshua. Leave while I get her scanned again. Ma’am, if you could help me get her there?”

Jemma tried to focus on what she could hear while they escorted her to get her head scanned yet again, trying to ignore the fact that even the number of scans alone couldn’t be healthy for her. Instead of letting herself worry, she just listened. She listened to the workers around her, to Dr. Harris and to Heidi, picking up as much information as she could while the drug was active. The effects continued while she was escorted back to her cell, Dr. Harris promising that, at a glance, she didn’t seem in immediate danger, and that he’d give her more details when he had them, and that, of course, she’d be given at least a few days to recover her eyesight.

He didn’t voice aloud the concern that she might not ever regain it entirely.

Heidi opened the door and helped her to her cot before typing. “If you need to get out to stretch your legs, I’ll be right outside your room, guarding it. You just knock.”

***

If she were ever going to be grateful for a tiny room with a single piece of furniture in it, this would be the time, nearly blind and all alone.

She wasn’t going to just sit here, literally, for long, though. She was going to find a way to get things moving, before Josh could do something as drastic as destroying the cure. It had to have been him who was considering it. It was time to try getting the cure released. If she continued letting them test her until Josh was finished, she’d be permanently injured or worse before they released the cure.

Since she didn’t need to get out of the building or coordinate with anyone else, it wouldn’t be as complicated as escaping last time, not really.

Well, except for the fact that she had a GPS tracker in her that may or may not be accurate indoors, she was more heavily guarded, she didn’t have Jack to help, she had a constant and splitting headache that made it hard to think, and her vision was more than a little bit blurry.

She latched on to the fact that she wouldn’t have to get out of the building this time and that Heidi had all but told her she’d let her out of her cell. There were the two biggest obstacles right there. She’d give herself the rest of the day to recover, and then tomorrow, she would go for it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Aches

Her pain returned during the night, waking her with a sudden spike of nausea. She rolled over just in time to avoid vomiting on her cot, the sound of the splatter on the floor making her retch again. Whether she’d heard the noise or someone watching the camera had informed her, Heidi entered, the door clicking and clanging loudly enough to send additional spikes of pain through Jemma.

A few minutes after the other woman sat next to her, offering nothing but silent presence, Jemma realized that recognizing Heidi meant her eyesight had recovered enough to make out her features.

She didn’t open her eyes again to figure out how much. Instead, she remained still, unmoving, her eyes closed against any light. She listened while someone else came in and cleaned up, and even after she slipped back into sleep, she was aware that Heidi stayed through the night.

***

When she woke again, the pain had lessened. She could smell a hint of bleach. The edges of her vision were blurry, no longer black, and the center of her eyesight seemed almost clear. As she looked around, Heidi, sitting on the cot with her back against the wall, opened her eyes blinking. She looked at Jemma, raising her eyebrows in question.

Jemma nodded, and Heidi gave her more room to sit up. She did so slowly, not wanting to bring back the nausea or make the pain any worse, and Heidi pulled out her keypad.

“You look a little better, but that’s not really saying all that much.” She hesitated, glancing at the camera, then handed Jemma the keypad and reached into another pocket, retrieving her own cell phone so they wouldn’t have to switch back and forth. “I think they’ll let this go as long as I’m the one with the phone and not you. We’ll know within a minute or two if I’m wrong.”

“Are they listening to what we’re saying?” typed Jemma.

“They never did add audio to that camera. That might be part of why they didn’t give you back your phone privileges. That and everyone being kind of upset with you. Dr. Harris should be coming to check on you soon now that he knows you’re up, though, so choose your words carefully.”

Jemma nodded, looking down at the keypad, making sure it was tilted toward herself instead of toward the camera. “I don’t know exactly how much you know about what’s going on. I know you’re aware of the threats of the Event, obviously, but what about the cause?”

There wasn’t a trace of either confusion or surprise in Heidi’s expression.

She knew Tricorp BioD had caused the Event.

“You know I can’t tell you everything.” Jemma knew the electronic voice wasn’t capable of conveying emotion, but Heidi sounded genuinely remorseful nonetheless. “But I can tell that you didn’t just sit around on your vacation.”