Dissolution

Chapter 1 - Perfect

They'd be mad not to buy you. Love you. Good luck. I tried to focus on Jake's voice, but it was a lost battle. Sure enough, I tensed just as two bright points of pain dug into my arm. It took me a moment to realize something was wrong. And then I quit out of my messages so fast that my sensors scrambled, leaving the sensation of Jake's fingers tilted on my chin.

The world swung back, white and sharp. I saw a coil of glossy black hair lying tame under a medical net. Dr. Yulisa. She was quick; she'd covered up my arm with tape and padding already. But I could still feel the two holes burning in my skin.

My free hand flew up to cover it. "What was that?" I hissed.

Dr. Yulisa gave my sleeve one last, sharp tug and looked up, eyebrows raised.

"Your morning dose," she said slowly, as if I was an idiot, and then she rolled her trolley away. I watched her go. In the background, John Whittaker Charles Anron was building up to the stirring end of his speech. But I wasn't listening anymore. I had the oddest feeling that the world had just shifted and I was the only one who hadn't caught myself.

U ok?

I turned. My display lit up and focused on a face two rows away, craning surreptitiously in my direction. Eleika. I tried to smile. Yeah. Just . . . did you get two injections today?

No, just the one. Why?

I frowned. We were in the same Experimental group. Never mind. I don't know.

Arms stinging, we filed out of the hall and into the main school complex. I scanned my timetable as I went, trying to psych myself up. After the last few weeks of math tests, coding problems, management simulations and chemistry formulas, today looked like an easy day. With just straight up physicals after lunch, all I had to do was get through the clinical test and sell myself in the interview and I'd be fine. Hopefully.

* * *

First up: the clinical test. We lined up as a horde, the whole year of us: ANRON, HARLIN, MERCE, PERCO, DRAYTH. Testers moved down the line, arranging us in random groups. At least I hoped they were random. I ended up in a cluster of kids I barely recognized, a mix of DRAYTH and HARLIN. The only other Experimental close by—just three students in front of me—was Aliss. She saw me looking and gave me a vicious smile. For what, being ahead? I rolled my eyes.

We waited. I didn't dare roll my sleeve up and check my arm out in public. Testers were funny about that sort of thing, as if we could somehow screw up a whole experiment just by looking at it. Instead, I bounced on my toes to try and see ahead. There were five mobile stations, each about the size of a cubicle. The lights on each one were flicked to red. I stared at them, willing them to change faster, trying to ignore just how long the line was. Three hundred and sixty-seven of us. We probably stretched out halfway to Unilox Hall.

It felt like forever before the next round of station lights glowed green and we shuffled forward. This close, I could hear the doors slide open on the other side and spit out the group before us. Someone was crying, low and muffled. The DRAYTH boy in front of me looked down at his feet.

We reached the front of the line. A Tester I didn't recognize, with shoulders so broad his lab coat looked like a door, directed us with impatient jerks of his hand. "You, to Station A. You, Station B. You, there. Yes, you. Strip."

Aliss and I were already halfway out of our jumpsuits. The HARLIN and DRAYTH kids hung back, horrified. Any sympathy I had for them was eaten up by the energy it took to distract myself from the fact I was getting naked in front of our entire year. Please open the door. Please open the door.

I kicked my jumpsuit off and grabbed it. The station door whispered open and I surged through. As I did, I stole a glance at my arm, but it was too late. Only the faint red pucker of healed skin remained. I hadn't even scabbed. Had I imagined that second shot? My stomach cramped. Maybe it was just nerves.

The door slid shut behind me and I blinked twice to adjust. The station was small: just large enough to fit the CQR Ultrasound Tube, myself, and the Tester with her screen projected up onto the wall. The light inside was a cold, pale white that made the Tester look like a corpse. She held up a scanner. "UConn, please."

I stuck my arm out. The scanner beeped and my full serial number scrolled across the screen. The Tester gestured me forward and I stepped into the open tube. There was a sucking sound, like an engine inhaling, and then it sealed shut. The machine hummed.

"This is going to be a little cold," she said, just as thin nozzles whirred from the ceiling and sprayed me down. I gasped. The freezing water hammered at me like bullets. Then the nozzles rotated. Thicker ones pumped out streams of clear gel. I squeezed my eyes shut. It felt like I was being covered in amniotic fluid.

Finally, that stream ended too. I wiped my eyes and shivered. "A little cold, huh?" I said. "That's a bit of an understatement, don't you think?"

The Tester ignored me. She was adjusting the controls of the machine. A sudden, eerie white-blue glow lit up the entire tube. I blinked. Data rolled across the screen on the wall. My data. Height. Weight. Eyes. Numbers. And then the scans—fresh images of my insides at different angles, rolling past so quickly it was like watching a poorly-cut horror Ad. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

A minute later, the nozzles rotated. The Tester didn't even give me warning before the same ice-cold assault of water battered the gel off my skin and left me shivering. Only this time, a wave of heated air followed. By the time I stumbled out, I felt like I'd been drowned and then lightly roasted.

The Tester was staring at my numbers. "You're . . . you're in perfect health, XKC2501," she said. She zoomed in on a graph and squinted at it, frowning. "Perfect."

I eyed her warily. "Does that mean I pass?"

She blinked, as if she'd forgotten I was still there. The numbers froze on the screen. "Oh yes, all done," she said in a rush. "You can get dressed now."

I pulled on my jumpsuit just as the door on the other side of the station slid open. I stepped out, blinking in the light. It felt like I'd been in there for half an hour. I glanced back. The door had opened on the other side; another girl stood there, trembling and naked, clutching her HARLIN pants and shift. Behind her, I saw the line stretching out, the Testers shepherding them forward like one vast conveyor belt.

I took a deep breath and turned away before the door closed in my face. One test down. Three to go.