Amber
We spent all day at the medical facility doing x-rays, inventorying surgical supplies and anesthesia, and reading anything we could get our hands on about surgeries performed on the anterior portion of the frontal lobe. What we found was that every worm had attached itself to the prefrontal cortex. They didn’t appear to be imbedded, so we hoped it was a matter of simply plucking them off. I supposed “simply” was not a good word, though. Nothing about it would be simple.
When Captain Ward was deep into learning how to perform a Craniotomy to open a skull, he dropped the book to the floor and grabbed his head, rocking in his chair.
“Oh, God. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Captain—”
“No!” He stood, his eyes wild. “I do root canals, not brain surgeries. I’m going to kill them, Amber! There has to be another way.”
I chewed my lip and paced. In a way, I was relieved, because I’d been freaking out about how we would pull it off. Even if they lived, one tiny wrong slip could leave them without emotions or creative thinking capabilities for the rest of their lives.
“Maybe the Baelese left behind some sort of instructions about the worms,” I said. “I wonder if the tech guys have gone through everything.”
“It’s worth a try.”
We walked together to the tech building, where we found Top and Matt with the technical and communications teams. Top took one look at our defeated faces and pressed his lips together.
“Not gonna happen?” he asked.
“Not if we want them in better shape than they are now,” Captain Ward told him.
I glanced around at the papers everywhere. “I’m guessing you haven’t come across anything about the worms in their papers?”
Top crossed his arms and shook his head. “They didn’t leave behind a paper trail of any sort. We’re sorting through written communications via satellite systems now. All these papers are from before.”
We were all quiet as we thought.
“Can I talk to the humans?” I asked. “Maybe they remember something.”
Top shrugged. “Worth a shot. I’ll come with you.”
Captain Ward and I were led by Top and Matt to the holding room where the thirteen sat. It was beyond creepy how they stared at the wall, barely interested when we walked in.
“This is our medic, Amber Tate, and our dentist, Captain Ward,” Top told the room. “They have some questions. Answer as best as you can.”
“Hi,” I said, stepping forward. “Do any of you recall when you received the, um, apparatus in your brain?”
“Yes,” they all responded, raising the hairs on my arms. Captain Ward and I shared a hopeful glance.
He stepped closer, pointing to the woman on the end, and said, “What is your name?”
“Marilee Green.”
“Mrs. Green, please tell us what you remember about it.”
She stared blankly up at him. “I was strapped to a hospital bed. A DRI female held The Helper to my nose while a man held something metal to the top of my forehead.”
I scrunched my forehead. “The Helper?”
“That is the name of the worm device,” she clarified.
Now all four of us shared looks. Maybe we could search the Baelese communications for that name.
“What did the metal thing look like?” Matt asked her. “The one they held to your forehead?”
“It was black. Rectangular.”
Top’s eyebrows rose, and he motioned to Matt, who took off, out of the room. Hope sparked inside of me, because it seemed as if they knew what she was talking about.
Morbid curiosity got the best of me. “Do you remember how it felt?” I asked. “Or were you sedated?”
“I was not sedated. There was pain, all day, headaches. I vomited many times.”
Oh, my God. Those complete assholes. Monsters. I clenched my hands into fists.
“We’re going to do our best to get The Helpers out of you,” I promised.
They said nothing. No responses.
A few minutes passed before Matt sprinted back into the room, huffing as he passed the rectangular box to Top.
“Was this it?” Top asked the woman.
“Yes,” she said. “The magnet.”
“Is that what they called it?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
The four of us gathered around as Top turned it over in his hand. Nothing was written on it, but on one side was a switch that could slide right or left. At the moment, it was in the middle.
“Do you think it controls it?” Captain Ward asked.
I nodded. “I think so. Do we have something that can check the magnetic field of it?”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “I’ll need about an hour.”
“We’ll meet at the tech room after dinner,” Top said.
As we were leaving the room, two soldiers were coming up the stairs outside with trays of food for the humans. I really hoped we could figure this out quickly, and I hoped even more that if we could get these things out, the people would be allies.
I barely ate because I was so busy telling Rylen and the others what was going on. Matt wasn’t there. The mess hall was like a cafeteria. Right now it was bustling and loud.
Shavontae and Devon were at the end of the table with Tyree, who ate and ate, not paying any attention to our conversation.
“Up their noses?” J.D. exclaimed with a shiver. “That is disgusting.” He put a hand over his nose.
“It’s cruel that they can remember,” Officer Sean said. “But if they’d been put under, they wouldn’t have been able to give you that information.”
“We’ll make sure they’re under anesthesia when we try to get them out,” I promised.
The front door flew open, and Matt stood there swiveling his head. I jumped to my feet as Captain Ward did the same at his table. Matt caught sight of us both and waved hurriedly.
Before I could step away, Rylen grabbed my hand and I looked into his proud eyes.
“Good luck, Pepper.”
I leaned down and kissed him before running for the doors.
We took the woman who’d given us the information first. Sedating her was easy. Matt explained that the switch controlled the positive and negative magnetisms, and we all believed negative was needed to send a signal to the worm to disengage and exit.
So many things could go wrong, but we had to try.
Captain Ward held the magnet to her forehead and flipped the switch. I stood behind her, holding the sides of her face. It took a full thirty seconds of nervous waiting before her body jolted, and I sucked in a breath, holding her tighter.
Her body began to lightly convulse, sending my heart racing. I looked at the monitor to be sure she wasn’t seizing. Her heart rate was fast, but still in the safe zone. Again, her body jerked, back arching more violently than before, and Captain Ward gaped.
“It’s coming out!”
As a paramedic, I’d seen too many gory scenes to count, but something about the sight of the bloody mechanical worm slithering out of her nostril almost made me lose what little bit of dinner I’d eaten.
I grabbed it with a set of surgical tongs and placed it on gauze. Then I set to cleaning her nose and waiting for her to wake. We hadn’t done much, but the Captain and I both appeared as if we’d just run a marathon. It was out, and now all we could do was wait to see how she’d be affected.
Her hand was cool in mine as I sat at the side of her bed. It took forty-five minutes before she stirred. Maybe stirred was the wrong word. She turned to the side and violently puked. I quickly grabbed a bin and held it beneath her chin. Captain Ward leapt to his feet from where he’d been half-asleep by the window, and rushed over to hold her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I told her as she breathed hard, looking wildly around the room. “You’re safe. I’m Amber Tate, and this is Captain Ward. We’ve taken The Helper out of you.”
A sobbing gasp ripped from her throat and she grabbed her head, heaving into the bin again.
“John?” she asked.
“You were one of thirteen people,” I told her. “Was John with you?”
“John . . . my son.”
Oh, no. She didn’t look more than thirty. “How old is your son?”
“Eight.” She closed her eyes against another bout of pain as my own stomach turned.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “All of the people you came with were adults.”
The mourning wail that came out made her grab her head and shake. Captain Ward came forward and injected drugs into her IV to calm her and help with the pain. I held her hand as she cried.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, though I knew they were the most useless words in the world. “When was the last time you saw John?”
Her eyes were shut tight. “I left him with my sister and her kids when I went to see if I could join the DRP so I could get food. They wouldn’t let me leave because they were rounding people up for a safe camp. They promised me he would be safe, and I would be brought to him after the procedure.”
My jaw locked in angry pity. Her eyes cracked open. “Tell me what you know. They never talked about it in front of us. What happened while I was working for them? What happened to all the people I helped round up?”
I heaved a breath in and out. “I’m not sure of the exact details here, but where I was from in Nevada, they bombed them. It was over fast.”
She made a choking sound and turned to the side, curling into herself.
“We’ve taken over the base, Mrs. Green. We’re working to fight back.”
“I want to kill them!” she cried.
I rubbed her back, remembering when my own loss was fresh and raw, like hers is now.
“We all do,” I assured her. “And we will.”