Extracted

Mitchell

I need to get out of here. Burning pressure squeezes around my temples. Mitchell is still talking. Why is he still talking? I don’t want to hear this.

“Haven’t you noticed how everyone is flawlessly perfect? How we’re stronger and smarter, like that two-thirds of our brains no one else can access is magically opened for us?”

I clench my hands against my head. “But…but, I had a life. I remember it. I am not an experiment grown in a lab.”

Mitchell grabs my arms and leans down to my eye level. “Hey, calm down. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laid it all on you like this. It’s just…there’s so few of us who remember our old lives.”

“You remember too?”

“Uh-huh. We’re not supposed to. That’s one of the first things they do when they extract someone. Erase our memories.”

“Extract?” The glass walls are spinning around me. I sway.

Mitchell holds me steady. “You going to be okay?”

“No. I feel sick.”

He winces. “Just keep it together until I get you back to your room, okay?”

I swallow hard and nod.

“The guards have moved off.” He flips his tablet to another screen and scrolls across several schematics that I don’t understand. The door clicks and the light on the keypad panel turns green.

“Earlier, you opened the door for me,” I say.

“Uh-huh.” He nods, engrossed in whatever the strange schematics on his screen are telling him. “Lucky for you I happened to be monitoring the hallways when you left your room. I’ve been erasing your image from the camera feeds and replacing the footage. I couldn’t believe it when you headed this way though.”

We ease out into the hall and I follow Mitchell down another route.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“Test-tube genius.” He taps his temple. “They really have no idea what we’re truly capable of. Shh, we’re passing by the guards’ sleeping quarters.”

We pad silently down a few more hallways until, surprisingly, we’re back in the student lounge area. Mitchell nods for me to head into the girls’ wing.

“But wait. I have more questions.”

He glances down at his tablet. “I’ll explain everything soon, I promise, but you need to get back in your room. If Cecelia…” He shakes his head. “Be careful around her. Don’t worry. When it’s safe, I’ll explain everything.” He shoos me on. “Go already.”

Hesitantly, I turn toward the hallway. I know he’s right. I need to be careful. I don’t want to lose who I remember I am. I’m AnnaLee Johnson of Jeffries Point, Wyoming. I can’t help grinning. I’m me. I’m not going crazy. Just knowing that is such a relief. I’m me.

So how did I end up in a laboratory-grown test-tube body? That’s one question Mitchell failed to answer.

I…realization hits me. I’m in a different body. I begin to shake. What happened to mine?