"Run faster, you savage, beat her," Coach Cora yells. As soon as I hear this, I turn and stick my tongue out at her. Then, a gunshot rings out. I thought it was just the JV boys race starting, but all of a sudden, everything goes black.
I come to with such suddenness, I bolt up into a sitting position. The first thing I see when my vision clears is that Coach Cora is sitting in my room. The next thing I see is that this isn't my room, but instead, a pristine and sterile... laboratory?! I try to call out to Coach, but I can't seem to speak. Sensing my panic, Coach flags down someone, that someone being a boy with blonde hair. Great. Just great. My life is in the hand of a 16 year old boy. He took one look at me, and I try once again to speak, but I can't. His green eyes filled with worry as he reaches towards my neck. I jerk away from him, jumping off of the operating table and only running to the door before I freeze. I try to keep moving, but I physically can't move.
"Poor thing, she must be scared out of her wits," the boy said.
"She's a tough cookie, trust me," Coach said, "Even on the hardest workouts, she never gave up, even when all of the other runners gave up and quit trying."
"Well, the controls ar-," the boy suddenly stopped speaking.
"Controls? What controls? She is a human being, not a robot," Coach snaps. I want to hear the rest, but I black out again.
Panic jolts through me. I still can't move. I try to sit up, then move my arm, then my hand, then my finger, but I can't move anything. I can't even open my eyes. I then realize that I can't breathe. I am ready to black out again, but then I realize that I am hooked up to an oxygen supply forcing oxygen through my body. I try to move again, and this time, I realize that I can sense Coach in the room. Just then, I realize that I feel something on my neck. Could that be what the boy was reaching for? Just then, something that feels like a jolt of electricity flows through me, and my eyes snap open. Again, I try to speak. I sense the boy before he walks in. The boy types something into a computer. Then, he reaches for my neck again. This time, when I try to run, I can't. I can't move at all. He looks at me, and gently turns me around. I want to run so bad, but I can't even blink, much less run. The boy touches the object on my neck, and it hurts super bad. It felt like he was holding a blowtorch to my neck.
"Allow vocal functions."
Allow vocal functions? What am I, a robot? I try to speak, but I still can't.
"Try to speak, Madison," the boy prompts.
After about a minute, the boy, realizing that I still can't move, types something into the computer again. While he is typing, I try super hard to scream, but I can't. The boy reviews his typing, and, seeming satisfied with it, hits enter.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," I yell.
"Well, the freeze coding works," he says.
Coach storms up to the boy, and when he tries to evade her, and demands, "What the heck is going on? She shouldn't be responding to coding!"
"Ah, but she should be. Neural Transmission Coding, or NTC, is something many scientists have been working on. It allows us to send programing to disabled minds and allow people to function better. Since her mind is disabled from o-the gunshot, she is the perfect test subject, and she is responding well."
"So, she is part robot?" Coach asks.
"No, she is still completely human."
"So, how does she receive these 'programs'?"
"Excuse me, but I'm still here," I say.
"Oh," the boy says, "Hello. I'm Joseph, and I'm on the team responsible for the NTC project."
"So... you're the one who turned me into a slave."
"No, you aren-"
"Excuse me, but how is she not a slave if she is forced to respond to every program that you send to her?" Cora inquires.
"Okay, so she is a slave- sort of."
"And now, let's go back to my question."
