Michelle Maddox - Countdown

Jonathan produced a piece of fabric, which he unrolled on the table in front of me. There were several silver medical instruments, all very sharp, all very dangerous-looking.

"If you hurt her-" Rogan warned.

"If you keep distracting me with that gun, I may do just that by accident." Jonathan had a syringe in his hand, and he filled it with a small amount of clear liquid from a tiny glass vial. "There's no time to put you completely under, Kira, so a local anesthetic will have to do."

I eyed him uneasily.

"Wait." I held up my hand as he approached. "Rogan, didn't you say that the implant will detonate if removed improperly?"

Before Rogan could say anything, Jonathan replied instead. "That's absolutely true. However, I am one of the very few people trained in removing such devices properly. But you must hold still and stop talking."

Okay, so even though Jonathan had lied to me several times, I was putting my life in his hands because I had a "hunch" he was a decent person. Was that enough?

Dammit. It had better be. There weren't any other choices at the moment.

"Put the gun down!" Jonathan commanded Rogan. "Or I won't do this at all."

I glanced at Rogan, who met my gaze. Finally, the muscles in his arms flexing, he lowered the gun and placed it on the counter next to the stove. His expression didn't change from that of menace. I knew if Jonathan made one wrong move, then Rogan would reach over and break his neck.

Oddly enough, the thought was surprisingly reassuring.

Any thoughts, reassuring or otherwise, disappeared from my mind as I felt the jab of the needle to the back of my head. A few seconds later my eyesight went a bit blurry, and a numbness began to spread across the back of my scalp to my ears, then to my cheeks and jawline.

Rogan sat down next to me and reached for my hand.

"It'll be fine," he said, and his voice was muffled, as if he were speaking to me from another room.

"Sure it will." My words were so slurred it sounded like I was drunk.

It will be fine, I repeated internally, trying to focus on anything other than the ticking in my head. Three minutes wasn't a lot of time.

Jonathan reached forward and chose a scalpel. I squeezed Rogan's hand and closed my eyes. Despite the anesthetic, I could still feel the knife score my skin, right where the original incision was. I felt an ooze of warm blood slide down the back of my neck before it was wiped away.

The instruments rattled together as Jonathan took something else from the selection. First he dabbed something on the wound.

"I'm neutralizing the connection," he said. "It should prevent the implant from exploding when I remove it."

"It should prevent it from exploding?" Rogan repeated. "You better damn well be sure."

I squeezed Rogan's hand tighter, and then I felt a strange pulling sensation.

Then there was a pain so intense and pronounced that my eyes snapped open and I inhaled sharply.

"Dammit." Jonathan's voice was strained. "Please hold still!"

I felt a series of painful snaps, and then for a moment I saw nothing at all. I'd gone completely blind, and the total darkness felt as if it were smothering me. Just as that thought was settling in, my automatic fear of the dark closing in around me, my vision cleared and I heard a metallic thunk as Jonathan tossed my bloody implant into a metal canister filled with a clear liquid.

He grabbed another instrument; this one was red-orange on the end, and I knew it was because it was extremely hot. He pressed it to the incision, and I smelled my flesh burn as he cauterized the wound.

I couldn't hear the ticking countdown anymore. It was gone. I felt a small sense of relief, but we were only halfway there.

I looked down at Rogan's hand. I'd clutched it so hard that I'd made little half-moons that filled with blood from where my fingernails dug in.

"I'm sorry," I managed, my words still slurred from the drug.

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. "You're a very brave woman."

"Thank you." I managed a small smile. "You're next."

"There're two minutes remaining," Rogan tensely told Jonathan.

"Then please hurry," Jonathan said, anxiety coating his words.

Rogan and I switched places and I held his hand, being careful not to hurt him again as Jonathan began working on him. Rogan kept his eyes open through the operation, breathing steadily through his mouth.

I didn't want to look, but couldn't help myself as Jonathan cut a line into his scalp about two inches long. He held back the flaps of skin to reveal the implant, which was an inch square. Little blue and red wires as thin as hairs disappeared into the skull itself.

Jonathan dabbed the implant with the colorless neutralizing solution and then used another tweezerlike instrument to pluck those metallic hairs out of the tissue connecting it to Rogan's skull. When they were detached, the implant itself finally gave way.

"What about his other implant? The prototype one from years ago?" I asked as Jonathan closed the wound and used the cauterizer on it. Rogan squeezed my hand tightly as the smell of burned flesh wafted under my nose.

Jonathan shook his head. 'There's no time. That would be a deep cranium operation. I'd need to saw out part of his skull to get to it. I don't have the time or the facilities to accommodate an operation of that magnitude. Besides, that implant never worked. It's not a priority right now."

I eyed the implant dangling from the end of his silver instrument. "So we're clear?"

"Not quite." Jonathan flipped Rogan's implant into the now pinkish water along with mine, grabbed the container, and took it over to the counter. He dumped the concoction into a blender and hit the on button.

With a churning, metallic grinding sound the implants were destroyed.

"Now, that should do it," Jonathan said, flicking the machine off. "Not terribly scientific, but it works."

I let out a long, audible sigh of relief.

"Are you okay?" I asked Rogan as I stroked his face, which had paled considerably during the operation.

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm still breathing. And you?"

"Never felt better."

"Glad to hear it." He glanced at Jonathan. "Thank you for helping us."

"You're very welcome." Jonathan came over to the table and sat down heavily in a chair facing us. "Now we must see what we can do about getting the two of you to safety."

Rogan's eyes narrowed. "That's all you have to say to me? After everything that's happened? I am grateful for you removing our implants, but that doesn't change a damn thing from the past."

"No, I don't suppose it would. What would you like me to say?"

"Maybe an explanation of what the hell's been going on?"

Jonathan's lips thinned. "It's quite simple, really, and you already know most of it now. An unexpected computer virus attacked the Ellis mainframe and attached itself to the artificial intelligence program that we'd been creating. It took over Gareth's implant and has been using his power and influence to grow stronger with every passing day. It feeds off the brain waves of the subscribers through their implants. Every year he's gotten more powerful. And with the Ellis fortune to back him, all he has to do is throw money around and he has a league of employees willing to do whatever he wants. Most of them believe they're simply working for a power-hungry boss with very little moral fiber."

"How has The Countdown remained a secret all this time?" I asked.

"Very simple," Jonathan replied. "Fear. Those who come to work closely with Gareth sign a confidentiality agreement, which, if broken, will result in the torture and death of an employee's family first, the employee second. There has not been one instance of an information leakage. Currently we have over fifteen thousand subscribers fitted with implants, who each pay upward of one million dollars a year to be a part of the feed." He snorted softly at that. "Ironic. The feed that feeds Gareth. And there is no end to his appetite."