The Perks of Being a Freak (Editing)

78. So Much For Avoiding Suspicion.

I stared at Dr. Hanson, willing him to speak. He glared back coolly, emotionlessly.

“You bastard,” I hissed.

“It’s good to see you as well, Juliana,” he replied.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Instead of replying, Dr. Hanson stood and rummaged in his desk. He pulled out a manilla envelope with a logo on the top right corner.

“I believe that this will answer any questions you might have,” he tossed it onto the table, and I pulled it towards me.

Inside was a picture of me, and a general basis for the idea, the weapon project. There was too much doctor-speak and latin words for it to even come close to comprehensible.

“Nice try,” I slammed the folder back down. “Now talk.”

“Or what?” Hanson sneered. I planted my palms on the table and leaned across it towards him.

“Or I fly you up to the top of this building and then drop you,” I saw him swallow nervously, and the sadistic part of me smiled.

“Fine,” he sat back and waved airily. “Ask away.”

“What surgical operations did you perform on me?” I crossed my arms. Guys? Get ready for answers.

Okay, Benny replied.

“Well, we grafted the wings to your back, and did corrective retinal surgery. There were several layers of muscle that needed to be removed in your back to make room for the wings, and we also removed your appendix,” he ticked them off on his fingers. “Oh, yes. And we implanted a chip at the base of your skull that links your mind to the minds of the other four.”

“You’re saying that we can communicate telepathically because there’s a computer chip in our spines?” Dr. Hanson nodded.

“Any other questions?” He looked bored. I shook off my shock. I couldn’t freeze up now. We still needed answers.

“Why the five of us?” Hanson frowned.

“You were volunteered,” he replied. “Didn’t you know?”

“We were… volunteered…” The words felt disgusting in my mouth. Volunteered? Someone had signed us up for this torture? Who would do something like that?

Were these really the answers that I wanted?

“I’m not allowed to tell you who,” Hanson continued. “We signed a contract.”

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where he could take that contract and shove it, but my vocal cords were no longer working like they should.

“How did you find us? And why us? You must have had more volunteers.” We had been volunteered. Someone had signed us up for this torture.

“We have contacts in the hospitals. We cross-referenced your volunteer forms with your medical records until we had the five most perfect.”

“Why… If I’m the weapon… Why did you need the other four?” Hanson pinched the bridge of his nose, but I was still too shocked to care.

Volunteered? The word resonated throughout the four of us. I wondered if Rajeev could hear it, hidden behind his walls.

“Have you ever heard the term fail-safe?” I nodded. “Most pieces of machinery have a fail-safe, in case there is a malfunction. Those four other experiments are your fail-safes.”

“So you’re saying that if I… malfunction… you have those four to… what? Shut me down?” I wanted to laugh, and cry, and scream.

We had been volunteered. 

“We didn’t expect for you to escape,” Hanson folded his glasses. “You were to be trained and given to the military. The other four were just in case you got out of line.”

“They would be the ones to kill me?” I raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that none of them could kill me even if they wanted to, right?” Maybe a little cocky, but true. I could fly away at twenty-thousand feet.

“No,” Hanson shook his head. “We would keep them here for safekeeping. If you were to become compromised, we would kill them, and you by extension. The chips in your spine do more than connect you on a telepathic level. They connect your nervous systems. If one of you loses an arm, the rest of you feel that loss as well, even if you don’t physically lose that arm. If one of you dies, the chip will trigger and short-circuit your brain.”

“You… you can’t be serious,” I whispered. “You ruined their lives… just so that they could become off switches? You bastard! You were going to kill Emily! Were you going to kill all of us??”

“We were going to terminate subject Thompson carefully, without endangering our weapon and, like I said,” Hanson shrugged. “You were all volunteered.”

“By who?!” I screamed, lunging across the table and dragging him up by his collar. “Who volunteered us?!”

“Lia!!” I spun, releasing Dr. Hanson, to see Aaron standing there, looking appalled.