First (27 page)

“Everything’s set.”

Socrates

A
t six o’clock in the
morning, Ellie knocks on my door and carries in a cup of coffee. “It’s all the doctors would let me bring you.” She frowns and sets the cup down on the nightstand.

When she turns her back to pull a chair closer, I slip the note I’ve written her into her pocket.
It’s better this way.
Jamming my hands back in my own pockets, I feel the soft, rounded edges of the original Ben’s worn metal dog tags. It doesn’t make any sense, but sometimes it almost feels like Ben is the same dog I had, all those years ago.

“Are you ready?” she asks, holding up a light-blue robe.

I slip my arms in and shrug it onto my shoulders. “Yes. As ready as I’ll ever be.”

She gives me a soft kiss on my forehead and helps me into a wheel chair, the same old one I used for the museum exhibit because the AI ones interfere with some of the machines down here, and pushes me toward the door. Ben gets up to follow. “Stay here, boy.” My voice cracks. He whines, swipes my hand with his tongue, then sits back down. “Good boy. You’re such a good boy.” Ellie looks at me oddly, then shakes her head, and we leave the room.

Upon reaching the medical center, we’re directed to a private room where the servant boy from dinner stands next to the doctors, wearing the same surgical clothing as the professionals, looking confident, polished, and ready for this job. As if he’s done this before. Is this James Scoffield? The man he’s talking to, Dr. Adams, nods in agreement with everything he says.

Ellie stops, gives me a hug, and whispers, “I love you,” with tears in her eyes.

“I love you, too.” I smile back at her, my own eyes misting.

After she leaves, the doctors check all my vitals and
tsk
at my overall poor health, which is to be expected, I guess.

Right over the little scars from last time. After that, I sit in one of the chairs, in too much pain to get up onto the table.

The doctors finish their assessment, and on their way out, James Scoffield gives my hand a squeeze and whispers, “Everything’s set.”
Is it? Am I ready? Is Mira?

No One’s Prisoner

Mira

“S
ocrates wants to see you,”
a young servant girl with freckles dotting her slightly upturned nose says, coming into my room without knocking. I jump.
Thanks for the warning
.

I follow her to another room just like mine. Socrates waits in a chair, a light blue robe billowing over his thin, bent frame. The girl leaves, shutting the door behind her.

“Sit.” He pats the bed.

I sit down. I don’t look at him. I can’t. He stares at me so deeply that I’m uncomfortable and start to fidget. His pale blue eyes glow and look right through me.

“You know,” he says, “the hardest part of waking up after a transfer is remembering your name. When I wake up, it’s like I’m reborn. It can be very disorienting. I can’t speak, I can’t move, and I can’t focus on anything. My senses slowly come back to me, but it’s strange because I’m in a new body, and everything works slightly differently. After I’ve had a few minutes to catch my bearings, the doctors ask me my name.”

“Why would they do that?” A sharp pain stabs me in the chest. Why is he telling me this? It’s not as if I’ll be alive to see it.

Socrates shrugs. “It’s tradition. In the beginning, there was a high failure rate. Half of the time, if the Second woke up, they were still in their own bodies or both of them could be present, and the procedure would be considered a failure. If the failed Second was lucky, he or she would never wake up at all.”

“What happened to them?”

“Things were different back then. Failed subjects were usually taken to labs to be tested and examined to see why the procedure didn’t take. If the Second were physically fit enough, the procedure would be attempted again. You see, in the early days, it was all volunteers, so no brilliant minds were lost.” His gaze leaves me and turns inward. “I came close to being labeled a failure myself a couple times.”

“Why?”

“I forgot my name, believe it or not. It’s strange. You wouldn’t think you’d forget that. But that first conscious thought is often very confusing. Unfortunately, that’s the most important test you have to pass, even though it’s not very scientific.”

“Then, why do they use it?” I look down at my hands, folded in my lap, then at his, twisted and unnaturally bent with age.

He chuckles. “Partly because that’s just the way they’ve always done it. Tradition. But another part is the audience. The important people watching the procedure aren’t going to sit around all day for tests to be done. Asking your name is just a preliminary thing, so they can slap a success label on you and laud it to the presses. The real tests come later, which compare the new First’s memories with the actual historical accounts. There’s no test that can say with one hundred percent certainty whether an Exchange is a success or a failure, but it’d be nearly impossible for a Second to know the detailed questions they’ll ask. So the first thing I say when I wake up is always, ‘I am Socrates.’”

“What’s it like? Dr. Cambell said it was like going to sleep but…”

“He’s right. The drugs are strong and take effect quickly. The reversal drugs work just as quickly.” He pauses. “You know, you can still back out if you want to.”

“Really? You’d let me go?” Hope, something I can’t afford to feel right now, springs up in me.
Why is he asking me this? Does he want me to back out? Does he want me to say no, I won’t go through with it?

“You’re no one’s prisoner, Mira. If you don’t want to do this, I won’t force you.”

I close my eyes and see my sister, younger than when she disappeared, smiling, waving her little chubby baby arms. I hear my mom say, “It was her only chance, Mira. There was no other way for her to escape.” I see my brother, Max, clutching his newly tattooed arm to his chest as he stands for his first visit.

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t want to change my mind.”

“Okay then.” He puts his hands on his knees to push himself up, and just as he trembles to his feet, there is another knock.

Two doctors, one of them Dr. Bristol, the other named Dr. Scoffield, walk in. “Everything’s ready, sir, if you are.” Dr. Scoffield eyes me curiously.

Socrates glances at me. I gulp back the bile in my throat and nod. “We’re ready,” he says.

With Socrates in a wheelchair, we go with the doctors down a long hallway to a large, round room labeled as the transfer theatre. Adrian’s face flashes through my mind.
What was he feeling in these last few minutes? What was he thinking?

A door bangs shut behind me, and Will rushes over to us, pulling me tightly to him. His eyes are full of agony.

“Mira,” he whispers and kisses me, his lips molding to mine perfectly. I think of the people around us. The doctors, Socrates, but Will apparently doesn’t care. He doesn’t even act as if he sees them.

After a moment, Socrates clears his throat.

Suddenly embarrassed, I jerk away from Will. “I thought you were gone for good.”

“Never.” He gives me a reckless, carefree grin. “I was an idiot. I didn’t think I could handle it, but it’s not about me. It’s about you.” He grabs my hands, and pulls them to his lips in a quick kiss.

“Are you going to be there? While it happens, I mean?”

“Of course! Unless you don’t want me there. I asked Socrates’s wife, George Eliot, and she arranged it. Said something about how it’s never been done before, having a servant in the audience.” He flashes me another grin, but this one is sadder, like he’s feeling the pain of my death before I even die. Relief swamps me, then I feel guilty. Why? Shouldn’t I spare him? Tell him not to come? It’s not like he hasn’t seen this before, but still. Am I different? I’d like to think so. If I’d known, in the beginning, could I have pushed him away, separated myself from him enough so he didn’t get hurt? One look in his eyes and I see what must be reflected in mine, because he gives me another quick, passionate kiss. No. Whatever we feel, whatever we felt, it was meant to be. Just like this. “I’ll be there, Mira, I promise. Even if I can’t be in the same room, holding your hand, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” I whisper into his ear. Socrates coughs again, so I pull away from him, leaving a respectable distance between us.

“I love you, Will.”

“I love you too, Mira. I will always love you.” Who ever thought
forever
would be so short?

We kiss again, then he walks away down the hall, and just before he turns the corner, he looks back, and I see pain chasing the bravery from his face. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to see this. But he’s doing it, for me. Then he smiles, and I hold that image in my head as Socrates and I are led into the medical theatre. The same room where my cousin died.

I point at the big machine humming softly in the center of the room. “Is that the machine that does the actual transfer?”

Socrates nods. “Yes, it will upload and store my mind while yours leaves your body. After restarting your heart, the machine will download my mind into your body, and the doctors will administer the drugs necessary to revive me.”

There are several orderlies and doctors in the room, moving so efficiently they’re a blur of motion. We are directed to our appropriate beds, and a thought strikes me as I push myself up onto the thin mattress. Is someone making a video like they did of my cousin’s transfer? Will a future Second have to watch me die like I did Adrian? I put a hand to my head, telling myself to be strong.

“Mira,” Socrates calls out, grabbing my attention. “Remember what I told you.”

Why? Is that important? Does that really matter?
Maybe he just wants me to remember that it’s not going to hurt.
Yeah, right.
Like it didn’t hurt my cousin? Deep in my chest, I feel a crack in my calm façade. Fear breaks through, and I shake.

“Lie down, please,” an orderly with kind brown eyes and curly brown hair says. His nametag reads Martinez. He looks so calm, so normal.
How could you?
I want to ask. How can you do this? How can you work here, knowing that whoever the kid is, he or she is going to die? “It’s going to be okay.”
Liar!
I want to slap him, punch him, push him away, but I don’t. It’s almost as if I’m not a part of my body anymore, like they’re already disconnected.

I just lie down like the good little lamb that I am, and Martinez secures soft fabric cuffs around my wrists and ankles. “So you don’t fall off the bed,” he says, even though I don’t ask.

He puts a little silver gun with a pink pad to the back of my wrist and pushes the button on top. The instant pain surprises me as a tiny needle finds its way into my vein. He attaches the other end of the needle to the clear tube hanging from the stand next my bed then covers me with a thin white blanket. Just like my cousin. I close my eyes.
This is really happening, isn’t it? I’m really going to die?

I glance over and watch the same thing happen to Socrates, except they don’t tie him down.
I guess you don’t have to tie down a dead body
. The young blond doctor, Dr. Scoffield, walks in. He scans the room and then walks over to Socrates. They talk quietly, but with the buzz of the electronics, I can’t tell what they’re saying. A couple other doctors glance at the stranger, but he ignores them.

Martinez taps my arm to get my attention. “Sedatives will be administered through your IV. The first will relax you, and the second will make you just go to sleep, so you won’t feel a thing.”

“Promise?” My voice comes out shaky, and I sound more like Max when he’s scared than Mira, the seventeen-year-old almost-adult. Maybe Max and I aren’t that different after all.

He smiles benignly. “Don’t you worry. Everything’s been calibrated just for you.” He flips a switch next to one of the bags, and the colorless liquid moves sluggishly down the tube. When it reaches my hand, I feel coldness seep into my veins.

After Martinez leaves my side, Dr. Cambell comes and attaches little round pads to my head. This is it. “These probes will connect your mind to the computer right next to you,” he says, matter-of-factly, though his eyes are pained, as if he doesn’t enjoy his job.
Tell you what, Doctor, you and me both.

Martinez walks over carrying a wicked helmet-like contraption, all shiny steel, and I shiver. It looks so much bigger in person than it did on Adrian’s video. Do all Seconds feel like I do? Terrified? Frozen with fear?

By the time they lift my head and gently place the helmet on it, I’m already feeling woozy. Dr. Cambell reaches toward my head, and I know he’s going to insert the first needle. He presses a button, and a lancing, sharp pain shoots hot and fast into my skull. I jump, screaming. My tongue feels thick in my mouth, so there isn’t any sound. Then he pushes another button. The next one hurts even more, and I fight the restraints, wrenching my arms back and forth, fighting to get free.
I changed my mind! I can’t do this! Please, let me go!
I scream again as he pushes another button, and white hot agony stabs into my skull, but again, no sound comes out. Is this what they meant by making sure I don’t feel any pain? Just shutting me up enough so no one can hear my screams?

Martinez wipes at something hot dripping from one of the wounds in my head. “Hold still, or you’ll break off the needle, and they’ll have to do it over again.”

I freeze in panic. Would they do that? Stab me with more needles, right on top of the old? One look in Martinez’s eyes, and I know it’s true. Not because he’d want to, but because he’d have to. Maybe he doesn’t have a choice, either.

Another button. Four down, two to go. Dr. Cambell continues, as if it doesn’t matter that each needle is poker-hot agony. Tears pool in my eyes. When he finally finishes, Dr. Adams fiddles around with the computers for a few minutes before the one who put the helmet on me comes back and stands next to the rack with the clear bags on it. He puts his fingers on a little valve.

“Ready?” he calls.

I don’t say anything, but he isn’t really asking me anyway. I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can and ball my fists, trying not to panic. Somewhere off to the side, Socrates says, “Yes,” and I feel a cool numbness fill my body.

I can’t do this. I want to live a long life or even go home and spend one more day sitting by the stream. I want to watch Max play in the mud or catch fireflies in old jars. I want to scream, cry, and shout. I want to laugh, kiss whomever I choose, and marry the man of my dreams. I fight the straps, wrenching my arms. I widen my eyes, shaking my head as best I can, searching for someone to help me.

Dr. Scoffield meets my terrified gaze and nods, smiling slightly. What does that mean? That he’s acknowledging my existence? That he knows I’m afraid? Terrified? Is it some sort of message?

Martinez walks over and hands Dr. Scoffield a syringe. “This will ease his transfer into the main computer. As soon as we give the signal, slowly inject this into his I.V.”

The doctor nods again, but when the orderly turns away, he slips his hands in the pockets of his scrubs. When he pulls them out again, there’s a syringe in his hand, but it’s different, smaller.
What’s going on? What did he do?

I open my mouth to ask, but no sound comes out. My eyelids quickly grow heavy, and my tongue is a dead weight in my mouth.

Okay, so I’ll close my eyes for a second. Just rest them a minute.
That’s it, then I’ll find a way to fight the drugs, break free. Do whatever I can. Whatever I… can? What am I doing here? I shouldn’t be fighting this. I’m doing this for Max. For Rosie.

I feel myself drift and try to open my eyes, but I can’t. It’s that darkness, the heavy blackness I can’t do anything about, that scares me more than anything else that’s happened so far. Even those awful needles, at least I knew those were coming. But this blackness? It’s absolute, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to escape. I try to move my arms, my feet, my head, even a finger. I can’t. Everything is just dead weight.

I feel as if my body is shaking, but I know I can’t be moving at all. I’d know it if my body was moving, right? Yes, I’d have to feel it. But I can’t really feel anything anymore.

So cold now. Tired.
Is this what death feels like?