AlexMcGilvery Array - Nano Bytes

You should be used to things going wrong by now. Of course, there’s going to be an Ice Age on the week you’re under house arrest.

She glanced down at the implant in her shoulder. The glowing blue dot flashed beneath the skin. When they put it in, she’d been told that if she left her apartment, it would activate. The judge had been particularly harsh when he gave her a heart–stopper. If it became active, her heart would explode in her chest, meaning she was stuck here unless she wanted to redecorate her stylish apartment with blood spatter.

She turned around to face her neat apartment. The cream couch had become her favorite place to spend her sentence. With a freezer full of ice cream and a fur throw, a week in here hadn’t sounded so bad at the time. But now, it sounded like a death sentence.

I need to know how bad this storm is going to be. Is it an actual Ice Age? Aren’t we already in one anyway?

Hurrying over to the couch, she snatched up the remote and flashed the red laser in it over the center of the room. She knew that the media weren’t the most reliable source of information, but it was the only source available since the internet had gone down.

A 3D projection of the national news desk appeared in her living room. She stared at the empty desk in horror. Where had the presenters gone?

She hitched her breath. From what she could see, the studio was deserted. Frowning, she used her remote to turn the studio cameras, thankful that she’d paid extra for the interactive features.

Her heart skipped a beat. She’d expected to see someone still there, but the entire studio was empty. Other than a fern in a pot, which had been tipped over, there was no indication of life at all.

She stared at the streaming text as it scrolled across the bottom of the projection, saying the same thing over and over again:

RED ALERT BROADCAST: TEMPERATURES HAVE REACHED A CRITICAL LOW. RESIDENTS ABOVE THE SOLARIS FAULT LINE MUST HEAD SOUTH IMMEDIATELY. 900,000 REPORTED DEAD IN THE COUNTRY’S CAPITAL. RED ALERT…

She turned off the broadcast and dropped the remote onto the couch.

Nine–hundred thousand dead… That’s the whole city!

The capital city of Torlon was only a day’s drive away.

She clenched her hands into fists.

Oh, screw this. I’m not waiting here to die.

Thea glared down at the flashing blue dot on her shoulder.

There has to be a way to get this thing out of me.

Experts usually did implant extraction in a clinic. But from what she knew about the tech, they were just sensors that sent out electrical impulses. The impulses frazzled your brain into sending the wrong signals to your organs.

So what happens if I just carve this thing out of me?

She glanced at the window. The snowstorm was a blizzard now. A white blanket of snow had covered everything as snowflakes swirled around in the air, blotting out the city one icy flake at a time.

I’d rather explode than freeze to death.

She jumped up and hurried over to the kitchen to get a knife.

Yanking open the cutlery drawer, she rummaged around inside it, frowning when she couldn’t find anything with a blade on it.

What the hell did the enforcers do with my cutlery?

Underneath some spoons, she just found more spoons. A bubble of panic began to grow in the back of her throat as she pulled out the drawer and tipped it out onto the floor. There weren’t any sharp implements in the pile of items on the floor.

Those fuckers! They took everything I could use to cut with.

After the trial, she’d had to allow the enforcers into her apartment. She’d thought it was to check for illegal items. But apparently, their sweep of her apartment included removing anything she could cut the implant out with.

Her breath came out in short bursts as real panic began to set in. In the back of her mind, the idea of cutting the implant out and escaping had been her backup plan. The fact that she could see her breath in the air as the temperature rapidly dropped didn’t help alleviate her fears. It was already getting colder in here.

Determined not to give up, she hurried into her bedroom. She had hidden weapons that she could use as a surgeon’s scalpel.

Hurrying to her closet, she turned the door handle on it four times, twice left and twice right. The doorknob inverted to reveal a small keypad. With a tight smile, she pressed her thumb onto the small black screen. A green line flowed down the screen as it scanned her thumbprint.

After an audible click, the door swung open to reveal a secret section of the closet, an alcove filled with shelves and boxes. She frowned at the photographs pinned to the back wall—William’s father going into Devlin Corp, William at college, the enforcers attacking street kids.

She sighed at the memories the photographs inspired. Her world had been so complicated for all the right reasons. Her intentions had been to help people for all the good it did anyone in the end.

She’d been a spy, an activist against Devlin Corp. She’d been a criminal before that. Since massive corporations controlled the justice system and the enforcers, there wasn’t any real justice in the world. In the beginning, she’d only been breaking laws for herself. But when the people starving on the streets had become the targets of the enforcers, she had made it her mission to find out why.

She’d infiltrated Devlin Corp with a fake identity to find out why they were making people disappear.

But her life of spying for Revolution, a group of hardcore activists, had turned into a constant, moral dilemma. William had been, and still was, an innocent in it all. She hadn’t meant to fall in love. She hadn’t meant to become so immersed in the world of corporate lies that she’d lose herself. She hadn’t meant to get caught.

She narrowed her eyes as she reached into the dark alcove, pulling open a metal case to get her knife.

Her eyes widened.

No! They can’t have broken in here too.

She pulled out the box and searched through it, her heart racing. Only foam spaces remained where her weapons had once been. They’d taken everything.

She dropped the box and stepped back, her heart sinking.

That was it. That was my only chance.

She sank down onto the bed, blankly staring at the open closet. This implant wasn’t a control device. It was a death sentence.

Her eyes wandered up the wall to the security camera embedded in the ceiling. Were they still watching, or had they headed for warmer climates?

Frowning, she tried to think of another way out. There had to be something she could use.

She flinched at the sound of cries coming from the hallway. Then she sharply inhaled.

I can still open the goddamn door!

Jumping to her feet, she hurried out of the room and rushed to her front door. She peered through the peephole. There were several people rushing down the halls as they left the building.

Stepping back, she flung open the door, careful not to set off the sensors around the doorway and scanning the people as the rushed by. One of them had to have a knife or something sharp enough to break her skin.

«Hey!» She called out to a jovial–looking man as he neared her doorway.

He ignored her as he rushed passed. «Wait!» she cried. «I need a knife.»

She turned to face the family of four who were rushing toward her door. «I need help. Can you help me?» she cried.

The father hugged the child he was carrying and shook his head as he passed her.

A feeling of desperation washed over her. She couldn’t even reach out to people as they hurried by. The second her fingers passed through the doorframe, her implant would activate.

«Please, it won’t take long. Can someone just stop for a minute?»