Remote

Wren

Wren

The streets perished in wintery darkness even though the month of March had recently arrived. They ignored the girl who slipped inside the hospital's rear door. A solitary nurse monitored the mostly empty floor. Wren had a gun strapped to her side and a knife in her hand but prayed not to need it. Research on the facility showed that surgeries and enhancements happened during the day, and it wasn't as if people died of natural causes. Everyone, even the Grounders like her, understood life expired at 100 in New State, and crematoriums existed outside the grand city limits for humane death and environmentally sustainable disposal.

Shadows cast by bright lights stained the walls. Technology thrummed in the background, monitoring changes in the patient's vitals. The bedridden woman appeared inhuman behind wires attached to her brain. Large pupils in otherwise glazed eyes led Wren to believe the new mother had experienced a blissful labor thanks to some powerful drugs and the computers leveling medications for peak efficiency. If anything went wrong, the nurse technician would be at fault.

It was the motto of New State—All errors were human errors.

Wren's father had told her otherwise, and as the leader of the rebel Grounders, he understood the truth. He'd also trusted her with this mission, an overwhelming need for certain medications in her underground home bringing her to the hospital.

Undetected, Wren observed the efficient tech wearing a silver and white New State uniform. Now that the infant had arrived, the tech cleaned, weighed, and conducted tests on the baby. The tech might as well have been holding a rock, mouth set in a grimace as she ignored the child's cries. The woman checked the baby's temperature, measured the circumference of his head, pricked his heel and tested for thyroid problems, enzyme deficiencies, and genetic disorders. After a computer mainframe declared the infant healthy, the tech brought out the Computerized Holographic Implant Program or CHIP, a small silver ring half the size of a thumbnail.

The owl-eyed tech hooked the infant up to a crib-shaped operation station that pumped the tiny baby full of sedatives. After strapping his head in place and pressing a button, robotic arms conducted surgery. Lifeless, metallic fingers lasered an incision and implanted the CHIP into the baby's brain. With another two slices of the laser and a few minutes of robotic surgery, a diamond-shaped port was grafted behind the infant's ear that would allow him to plug in and hook up when older.

After surgery, the tech activated the infant so he could earn his spot as a cherished citizen. Wren watched her unhook the baby and hold him aloft for his mother to admire, but the medications left the woman in a happy haze. Pupils large, the new mother's reality had nothing to do with her newborn.

"Time to go." The tech shrugged and strode along the sterile hallway. "You need to be conditioned well. Your parents are important citizens in New State. It's a shame your mother wanted to go retro and do natural birth. So antiquated." The whitewashed woman strode out of the birthing room, the squeak of her soft-sole shoes brisk on the floor.

The empty hallway beckoned Wren, who started the search for warehoused medications. Any drugs found would end up in her satchel, but antibiotics were the highest priority. A few rooms held patients. While New State's advanced science and technology eliminated most diseases, viruses, and deadly bacteria, hospitals still existed for modifications and the occasional retro birth.

Wren slunk through the hall, wondering about the tech she'd watched. Those owl eyes had been anything but natural. Far removed from the city, she couldn't keep up with the latest advancements, but understood the love of New Staters for implants and body modifications. She thought back to the time during a raid when she'd stumbled, by accident, into a room with a New State citizen hooked up for the night. She'd almost screamed, the thing in front of her anything but human. He sat, plugged into the vast cyber world, like a demon bull on his skull throne in hell.

At the hospital, Wren avoided the patient rooms in fear of witnessing more extreme modifications. The medicine wouldn't be there anyway. She'd reviewed the maps with her father, and he'd pointed out the central storage on lower level two. She needed to avoid detection and find stairs to make her way two flights down.

That should be easy, this raid a low-risk grab and go. Hospitals weren't considered important, with most diseases eradicated and most pain medication delivered by neural stimulation, but the facilities still needed back up supplies, and Wren was not leaving without them.

Much later, mission successful, Wren wasn't paying attention as she skulked back through the housing pods to the gate that would take her home. She'd found antibiotics, surgical instruments, syringes, and some other gadgets she had no idea what their function. She'd grabbed it all, hoping her father would approve.

"Hello," a computerized male voice said.

For an endless moment, she stared, mouth agape at the teen on the sidewalk.

Wren closed her mouth and ran.