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“Fuck,” Jacob grunts as AX1 backhands the doctor across the mouth. Blood and spit fly from his busted lip.
As satisfying as that is, there’s no time to savor it. We can hear more men are swarming the door. In mere seconds, they’ll breach it. AX1 crosses the room toward it and Jacob follows. I lunge for his wrist, halting him.
“Don’t—”
Lifting his free hand to stroke his fingers over my cheek, he says, “I’m going to be fine. This is what you built me for.”
The panic in my gut gives zero fucks about reason. I shake my head. “I can’t lose you.” The words escape my tight throat in a wheeze.
Jacob leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. Into my hair, he murmurs, “I would never,will never, put you through the pain of losing me. Do you understand?”
“Jacob,” Welsh says, voice taut. A warning—they don’t have the time for this.
“Get them fixed,” Jacob tells me, turning to go. I watch just long enough to see Welsh pull open the door, AX1 rushing the men closest to it in a Hail Mary with Jacob following close behind.
My hands are shaking. I flex them, then shake them out. I can’t afford not to be steady. I need to focus.
“You,” I say to the nearest AX soldier, “get up on the table.”
And then I begin.
* * *
One by one,I remove the soldiers’ chips. These are certainly not the ideal circumstances in which to perform neurosurgery, but it’s what I have. What I don’t have is a lot of time to wish for more or better, or to dwell on the fact that I’m not totally convinced this won’t have repercussions on my patients in the future.
My patients.I never thought of them like that before, at least not in a humanizing way. They were experiments. Equipment. Less worthy of my empathy than lab rats. Now here I am trying to be careful, fretting about whether I’ve done a good enough job.
“Go,” I say after placing the last staple in AX9’s wound. Obediently Simon hops down from the table, headed out into the hall to secure it with his brothers-in-arms, except I know it isn’t sheer obedience that drives him anymore—or any of them. This is a decision they’ve made, fueled by selflessness and bravery.
How ironic; every single one of them is probably a better person than me.
“Get up here, Jack,” I say, discarding my bloodied gloves for a new pair. AX23 slides toward me as I quickly sterilize my tools. “Same deal as the others. This is going to hurt.”
“I’ll live,” Jack replies with all the hubris of youth. I huff through my nose, then make the first incision.
The drill comes next, along with a plume of bone dust.
Jack’s doing okay, but I can tell by the way he grips the table that this isn’t exactly pleasant, nor painless. I hurry through as much of it as I can, lingering only when my work requires a more delicate touch. My mouth is dry, my stomach knotting tighter every time I hear gunfire from down the hall. I’m trying not to pay too much attention to it, but it’s impossible to fully block out.
“You, this way!” Welsh calls out, and I glance up to see him and Simon heading down the opposite way, Welsh providing cover fire. I know exactly where they’re headed, and it makes my heart pound harder. They’re going to assassinate the false president.
There is absolutely no time for me to dwell on that. I look back down at Jack’s skull—and curse.
“What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I can’t fix,” I tell him quickly, and it’s mostly not a lie. I can get his chip out, but doing so will be a much more delicate procedure than with the others; there’s a mass of scar tissue obstructing my view of the implant.
The brain usually doesn’t heal this way. But I’ve been fucking with biology, and here we are. “Don’t move,” I advise him, carefully inspecting the mass for any hidden arteries that might make this an even greater challenge. “Not an inch, or you’re not walking away from this. Understand?”
He starts to nod, then stops himself with a wince. “Yes, ma’am.”
I dig into an outside portion of the tissue, beginning with the area where its connection is thinnest. “Just stay calm,” I say, though I’m not immediately sure whether the words are meant for myself. “I’m going to get this out of you, and I’m not leaving your side until it’s done.”
Jack is quiet for several long moments. Then he clears his throat. “C’mon, doc. I’d be dead if not for you. I know that. Everything else… Well, get this chip out of my head and we’ll be square.”
I start to smile, if only a little. Some of the tension melts out of my shoulders and neck just before Dr. Green speaks.
“Think about what you’re doing, Adelaide.”
