Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

“I’m not signing those forms,” I tell him.

“You will sign them. Because you are the key! You have, inside you, the information we need. Heck, Josie Miller, you’re going to be famous. Think of that. They’re going to study you in the history books!”

“I don’t want to be famous in history.”

“What do you want?”

I look away from Dr. Cutlass.

What do I want?

I want to go back in time.

I want my mom. Or my dad. Or anyone who knew me from before and who can remind me of how to live.

I want some magic butter or fat or oil to go into my body and fill out each cell, so I don’t feel sharp inside—every atom of me grating against the others.

I want to be a girl again.

To un-know what I know.

I want someone to hold me. Someone who doesn’t want something from me.

“Tell me what you want, Josie.”

“For my life?” I spit.

“Not for your life! For ten milliliters of spinal fluid.”

“That operation will kill me!”

“Who said that? Sandy?”

“No!” I cry. “She didn’t say anything. I just…”

“You just what?” he asks, contempt edging through his voice.

“I just have a feeling.”

Dr. Cutlass exhales. He’s pissed.

“Listen,” he says. “I understand why you’re angry. If I were in your position, I probably wouldn’t want to help, either.”

He’s reaching now, for a way to connect. He’s trying to be a human. And even though I know it’s just a gambit, I do see regret in his eyes. And pain. It looks sincere.

“What happened at Mizzou, it must have been horrible. I’ve read the reports. You mentioned a boy,” he said. “Nicko?”

“Niko,” I correct. “He came all the way to Mizzou for me. And then the drift hit and Dr. Quarropas drugged me before I could even talk to Niko. He went all that way for nothing.”

Despite me telling myself, yelling at myself not to cry, tears well up in my eyes.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe we can locate him.”

He pats me on the arm. Rises. Then stops.

“If we were able to find him, would you sign?”

I turn my head away. He only cares about the consent forms. I had forgotten for one brief moment. I’d let him find his leverage.

I nod yes and press my face into the pillow, as best I can. The pillowcase smells like bleach and slightly burned. I cry into it for a while.

After I get myself together, I press the call button.

A Latina nurse comes in. Tall and angular. Her mouth turned down at the corners.

“Yes? You need something?”

“Where’s Sandy?” I ask her.

“Sandy’s working on a different floor, now. What do you need?”

I turn my head away.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Where are your restraints?” she asks.

“Sandy said I didn’t need them.”

“Oh, she did, did she? Well, we do things a little differently on my watch.” She crosses to the door and calls out: “Hector, restraints, please.”

“I don’t need them. I promise. I won’t hurt anyone.”

“You’ve been labeled ‘uncooperative’ on your file. Until you start to cooperate, you wear restraints.”

“Does Dr. Cutlass know about this? Where’s Sandy?” I cry.

I can’t help it—I curl up in a little ball. As if I think by keeping my hands and feet close to me, she won’t get them.

She comes over to my bedside and I think she’s going to talk to me, but no, she uncaps a small syringe and taps out an air bubble.

A large man guy in scrubs enters with leather cuffs.

“No!” I shout. “Please! I promise, I’ll be good!”

The nurse injects something into my drip and I fall fast.

They were not pleased with me, the soldiers. They thought I was an a-hole, and they let me know it.

Each of them wore safety suits. A heavier material than ours, but with the same baggy design. They had different face masks at their hips, too. More of a helmet, with a built-in mouthpiece instead of the ones like ours, that you held between your teeth.

They were some kind of a cleanup crew.

“You got any idea what the penalties are for interfering with the US Army, son?” bellowed the giant one who’d pulled me out of the car.

“Here comes Sarge,” said a different one.

I saw that the entire caravan had stopped up ahead and an officer flanked by three soldiers was walking to our car.

Then we heard it.

BREEEEEEEEE! A chorus of tiny alarm whistles.

“SUITS! MASKS!” they all shouted and everyone moved fast, the sun reflecting off their face plates and the sound of zippers all around.

And I suddenly felt icy, sick, cold—I had forgotten Astrid’s suit.

It was still hanging up on the back of the door at Rinée and J.J.’s house.

The soldier who’d been holding me was zipping on his mask. I darted away from him, scrambling to the other side of the car, all the while shucking my suit.

I had to get it on Astrid. I had to get her safe.

I opened the door and she fell halfway out onto the pavement.

The drift was swooping and wheeling in the sky, about a mile or so in the distance.

I got the suit off my legs. Astrid’s legs were in the car. I pulled them out. Got one leg into the suit.

The whistling died down as the soldiers zipped up.

The soldiers around us ran back up to the caravan, where they were unloading the sucker-jeeps from the flatbed trucks. I heard them shouting to one another—revving up engines.

I got her feet in and then lifted her weight up, getting under her shoulders and back, so I could tug the suit up her limp body.

There was only one whistling suit now—the one I was trying to get on Astrid.

Her head lolled back onto my shoulder.

The drift sent fingers to the ground here and there, little black twisters, reaching for what?

I zipped up the front of the suit.

“Here she comes!” cried someone.

“Ready the suckers!” came an order.

I fumbled for the headpiece. It was still in its holster, under her hip.

I got it.

“Steady!” I heard them call.

I heard a tinkling sound. Tiny tinkles, like hail. Coming closer.

Hail.

I got the headpiece on her.

I remembered hail.

Hail and blood was how it all started.

I zipped it closed, the rage blossoming in my brain.

Astrid. A girl. A girl in a suit. A green light near her face.

I pushed her back in the car, pushed her too hard, and I slammed it shut, slammed too hard.

There were men there.

Men with machines, aiming giant sucking funnels into the sky and I would kill one of them and put him in the funnel and chop him up.

Yes, a chopping machine!

I laughed.

They didn’t even see me coming and I got to the first one and I grabbed him by the back of the cloth suit.