Remote

Codex15111

Mason turned on his side, eyes lit with curiosity. "How close are you and Wren? Are we talking about a virus inside every part of the computer? Or just skimming the homepage and moving on to the next one?"

Codey appeared baffled for a moment, but with all the drugs coursing through his system, he didn't feel the need to lie. "Pretty well. She's been to my house a couple of times, and I showed her how to hook up. She's an amazing fighter. You wouldn't believe how well she battles hell's Phantoms."

Mason chucked. "She was in your room?"

"No big deal. I offered to let her hook up. You should have seen her attack the Phantom. That was amazing."

"I believe it," Mason replied. "Let's go back to the hooking up part."

Codex didn't have time to answer; their conversation stalled with the nurses' arrival. Wren and her dad entered soon after.

Codex watched as Wren noticed Mason propped on his side. She opened her mouth to ask him something, but he winked at her, flipped on his back, and closed his eyes.

Codex didn't like the feeling that sank into the pit of his stomach. Something was going on between the two of them, and he needed clarity. He'd given up everything to come here, not that he had much choice, but part of it had been because of Wren. If she didn't feel the same way. He couldn't believe that. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind as the nurse began questioning him.

Even with the variety and quantity of medicine flowing through him, Codey felt wrong. The world around him was flat and dead. And quiet. So damn quiet with nothing going on in his head. Without the CHIP, he lacked the constant influx of information ready and waiting for him. He couldn't compute how his mother had altered the CHIP, but now there was nothing to scan about technological advancements, no ads about what to buy or the latest techno craze. He wondered, in a vague and uneasy way, what his former friends and companions were scanning.

He searched for the part of him installed at birth, but it had disappeared. Gone. No voices in his head suggesting what to do next, leaving Codey confused. He had the overwhelming desire to be updated on the news, on his favorite shows, with his favorite celebrities, but silence reigned. There wasn't even background music filling the void. It was as if he had lost a limb. He felt as though he'd suddenly gone blind. He tuned the nurses out, turned over in bed, and closed his eyes. The monster of depression surrounded him.

He only sometimes came back to the surface when Wren visited, which was constantly discussing his parents' rescue. Those one-sided conversations, even though he rarely said anything, became only bright spots in Codey's bleak days. Rehabilitation, training his brain, was like learning to walk again. A crew of Grounders worked with him, and Wren remained at his side for every step of the process. By the end of the first week, it appeared to Codey that she never left his bedside.

Some days he wanted to die and refused to listen to the doctors and nurses who attempted to have him access his brain in ways he never had to before. Even controlling his limbs felt different and he hated it. He despised being so powerless over himself in every way and hated taking help from others, especially Wren.

"What do you miss the most?" Wren asked him one day.

He planned not to speak but to stay in bed and hope for death. Her question stuck. He missed what he'd formerly despised. He didn't realize how entangled in technology he'd become.

"I miss hooking up and doing what I want. Even if it wasn't real, it felt that way and gave me so much freedom. Now, I feel crippled. It's like I've had an amputation. I can't help but want back what I once had.

"The CHIP wasn't you."

His voice turned rough as he turned away from her. "It made me into a better me." Without the CHIP he was weak and lowly. He couldn't imagine a girl like Wren finding him appealing. "I was better before," he mumbled into his pillow.

Wren's sad stare reiterated those thoughts.