You know, it’s so important to be honest with people you like. Tell them what they mean to you today, because they might be gone tomorrow.
What makes me ache with grief is that Kade had stopped reading this blog, “I wanna read it when we’re through with all this, when we’re free of The Surgeon,” he said. Now, I kinda wish he had been reading it, as it would have given him a greater insight into me and my feelings.
I keep going over things in my head, like all the times I was snappy and scratchy with him – those times keep coming back to torment me.
……
Kelly is trying to communicate with me, flapping her arms and pointing, but I don’t have the energy to try and make sense of her.
Right now, I’m kinda numb.
……
Kelly jumps into the ambulance and removes the blade from Kade’s hand. I can’t watch, nor can I do anything.
What’s done is done.
I walk away on suddenly wobbly legs. Weakness takes over me and I rest myself against one of the vehicles.
I ache all over and feel suddenly nauseous.
I feel really heavy – my world is black…
……
A distant voice is calling out to me, “Tanya, are you OK?”
“What?” I feel fuzzy.
My shoulders are being shook.
“Who is it?”
My face is being slapped.
“Come on Tanya, we need to get you on your feet.”
A male voice calling me Tanya, my mind is trying to comprehend while my eyes flicker in an effort to stay open long enough to see who this is.
Water is thrown in my face, “What the fuck!”
“That’s it, come on Tan, you’re coming round.”
Tan, that’s what Kade called me. Snippets of info are coming back to me – Kade’s dead.
I sit up and see him – “KADE!”
He’s smiling. Is this some sick prank?
“I thought you killed yourself? You were in the ambulance with a scalpel in your hand,” I manage to say, while trying to stand up.
Kade helps me to my feet, “I fainted, and you went right ahead and did the same thing. I guess that’s what you call a sympathy faint,” he laughs, while checking me over for injuries.
I straighten up, it all comes back to me, “We couldn’t find you, what were you doing?" Why’d you faint?” My words slip out, all slurry.
Before he even has a chance to answer I look around and ask, “Where’s Kelly?”
He puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me toward the ambulance, “OK, I’ll start with your last question and work back. Kelly’s in the ambulance attending to Troy, one of the mute workers, he’s escaped…”
…“Is he injured?” I cut in.
“He is now; I was cutting out the GPS tracking device from his hand when I discovered something about myself.”
“What?”
“I don’t like blood. Man – I went down like I’d taken a bullet!”
I stop him, “Why didn’t you come and wake me, you know I can do minor surgeries like that?” I ask, my profound relief at him being here stops me from being pissed.
“I figured you needed the rest, and anyways Troy was far too freaked – he was trying to chop his hand off with the fire axe – he was terrified they’ll track him down. It was a struggle to restrain him, he’s all muscle.”
“Did you manage to get the GPS out?”
“Yep – and I disabled it. Kelly’s bandaging him up and she’s given him a little calming medication.” He stands in front of me and puts his hands on my shoulders, “But here’s the good thing, Tan – we now have an ally who can give us insider information from The Surgeon’s HQ,” he says.
“But he can’t talk, can he write?”
“Oh yes, the stuff I’ve already found out from him is pretty enlightening.”
“Like what?” I ask. I thought I had all the insight we needed.
“Come on, let me introduce you to him,” says Kade, taking my hand and leading me toward the ambulance.
……
I immediately recognize Troy; he’s the guy whose neck scar I first noticed. He flinches and cowers when he sees me. “It’s OK, Tan’s one of us, she’s on the good side,” says Kade. He continues to tremble and I can see that despite the anti-anxiety medication, he’s in extreme distress.
As Kade and Kelly continue to attend to Troy, a piece of paper with scrawled words across it catches my eye. I pick it up and begin to read: ‘We were kidnapped from our families when we were children. They removed and sold our kidneys, they removed our voices, they removed our humanity and turned us into worker bees, working tirelessly for their queen – The Surgeon.’
Troy notices me reading and stretches out his left hand and holds aloft a pen in his right hand, “Give him the paper, he wants to tell us more,” says Kade.
His pen races across the paper with incredible speed. When finished he hands the paper back to me. All three of us huddle together and read: ‘When we turn nineteen they will remove our lives, then they will remove all our organs for their commercial gain.’
We glance at each other as the horror of his words seep into our heads. Kade hands the paper back to Troy and with a voice trying to contain his shock, asks, “When do you turn nineteen?”
We watch his words scream across the page: ‘We all turn nineteen the day after The Wedding.’
……
Troy is sleeping.
I think we may have exhausted him with our relentless questions.
“Shall I wake him now, he’s been asleep for a few hours,” asks Kade.
“No, let the guy sleep. And I think we need a rest from all the stuff he’s been telling us,” I say.
Kade dives on the floor and begins pumping push-ups, “No way, I wanna know so much more – knowledge is power.”
Kelly is scanning the monitors looking for any signs that The Surgeon and her people have noticed that Troy is missing. All seems fine – for the moment.
……
At last some kinder words fill the space as Kelly types, ‘How bout I fix some coffee.’
……
I suddenly feel kinda awkward alone with Kade – no, not awkward – shy.
Kade joins me on the couch, “Hey, why’d you faint, Tan? You’re used to the sight of blood; maybe we need to get you checked out by a doctor, passing out for no reason can be a sign of an underlying condition,” he says, with a sincere concern for my well-being.
I nod my head, “No, I’m fine, I know why I blacked out,” I say.
“You sure you’re OK?”
“I’m sure, but there is something I need to talk to you about.”
A look of concern clouds his face, “Hey, is it something bad? You sound pretty serious,” he says.
My heart begins to quicken, “It might be bad, I don’t know.”
Kade rubs my shoulder, like he’s trying to make everything better, “Hey come on Tan, tell me – nothing can be as bad as what we’re having to deal with here,” he says, nodding toward the monitors and the rapidly growing Love Rush.
My heart begins to pound, “It’s just that I’m beginning to feel…”
…Troy pounds into the chill-out area, he’s disorientated and wielding a baseball bat defensively.
Kade jumps from the couch, “Whoa – chill, buddy, we’re on your side,” he says, holding his hands aloft in a conciliatory gesture.
……
Well, I guess we have more pressing issues to discuss than my feelings. I’ll park this conversation for now. Maybe I’ll bring it up some other time – maybe, lol.
……
Collectively we manage to calm Troy down. He sits on the couch sipping coffee like it is some luxurious nectar. Kelly hands him a tablet device that is synced to the robotic voice software. When he types and his words are transformed into sound, his face lights up like a child who has just heard his voice for the first time.
Troy’s fingers attack the tablet with a ferocious speed. We listen: ‘This coffee tastes so good. We were not allowed stimulants of any kind. Our nutritional intake and exercise routines were regimentally adhered to, so that our internal organs remain fresh and optimized for transplantation. We are like battery farmed animals, except farm animals are probably treated more humanely.’ He pauses to sip more coffee. Kade asks, “How come your parents didn’t alert the authorities when you were snatched from them?” Troy’s fingers tap the tablet with a mesmerizing speed: ‘They probably did; we are statistics – missing children, disappearance unsolved. The Surgeon has highly trained teams of ‘scouts’ (that’s what they call their kidnappers) working for them on a global scale. Most of us were snatched from poor families in poor far-flung countries, we were barely missed.’
The anger in Kelly bursts from her fingers as she attacks her keyboard: ‘This is fucking insane, how can they get away with crimes on this level? It’s not possible in a civilized society,’ she types.
Troy types back, his fingers fuelled with an equal but controlled anger: ‘They can and they are, because they have power and money. Their overseas facility is the largest, most state of the art secret research space in the world. It’s not only funded by illegal organ harvesting, but it harnesses the huge wealth of Pharmaceutical corporations.’
Troy pauses, takes a gulp of coffee and continues to type: ‘Tanya, your parents are the founders/owners of the most obscenely grotesque medical research facility in the world today – instead of testing drugs and experimenting on animals – they use humans.
He looks at me and in his eyes I see a mix of fear, fight and empathy. He continues to type: ‘You, their only son were their first experiment, your escape was their first failure. My escape is their second failing – we must prepare for the full force of their fight...'