Blast Protocol

Chapter 4

My hand. It almost looks like some kind of prosthetic. A particularly sophisticated one. It's not just a blocky piece of robotics. It is my hand. It is my forearm. In terms of feeling, dexterity, and shape, nothing has changed. Which doesn't make any sense, because what I'm looking at is more like a metallic replica, with gaps and seams and a metal ball joint at the elbow. There's no skin, just hard surfacing with a silvery, gunmetal texture. I move the fingers, and while I can't hear the mechanical parts shifting around inside, I can imagine them, and they look like the scene in Terminator 2, when Schwarzenegger peels back the synthetic layer of skin to reveal the machine parts underneath.

Is that what it's like under there? Is that...what I am?

Not that it matters, because this is all just a dream. Right?

Yeah. Right. That's what I've been telling myself.

Really, if you think about it, life itself is just a dream, like in the song. Everything you experience is just chemicals and electric impulses. Like the whole 'brain in a jar' thing.

But then, isn't that just another type of coping mechanism? Just another way of dissociating from the real world?

I should be feeling something. I should be feeling...a lot of things. 'Shaky' and 'violently ill' come to mind. I'd almost prefer either or both of those things. Instead, I'm just staring at myself, waiting for something to happen, waiting to be distracted. The inevitable questions are rising up, bubbling toward the surface. The implications. I wish I could keep them at bay. I wish I could opt out of whatever this is. I wish I could go back.

Go back? To what?

An empty house, full of the memories of the things I'd lost. Reminders of what I'd done scattered everywhere, around every corner. Inescapable.

Back there, in that world, there was certainty. The certainty of my faults, and the consequences of those faults. The reality of a future without the people I loved. And yes, that included my father as well. Things were never the same after what happened at Granite Falls, and they never would be. The rift was too great. Sure, my father and I—we might find a way to co-exist. But we both blamed ourselves, and we blamed each other, and what's the answer to that? Is there one?

Here, in this hallway, there is crippling, sickening uncertainty. The terrifying unknown. An episode of the Twilight Zone; probably one with a bad ending. And yet, I wonder if I would choose this over what I've left behind.

The girl who isn't Gemma spasms in my arms, blessedly tearing me out of my thoughts and into the present moment, giving me an excuse not to think.

Her eyes are open, irises bright emerald rings as she looks up into my face. She opens her mouth, makes a weird gagging sound, and coughs, spitting up bouts of clear fluid she must have inhaled somehow while she was unconscious in the tank.

I lift her so she's upright. The fluid stops coming, but she keeps coughing, clearing her throat. Once her coughing fit is done, she leans back, wincing, one hand pressed against the wound in her abdomen.

Her hands are like mine, albeit smaller, debatably more feminine.

She tries to get up, winces again, and eases her butt back onto the floor.

She looks at me. "They're gone?"

She's soft-spoken. Amid all the other sounds, I'm surprised to hear her so clearly. I suppose the echo in the hall helps to amplify her voice.

I lean to one side so she can see past me, the charred robot parts partially submerged in fluid.

She nods. "Good. And the others?"