Joan Ascends

Chapter 1: I'm no hero

For once, the shrieks of pain are welcome sounds. The popularity of the Bunker clinic has exploded as Throwbacks all over the state drive to Seattle and line up to have the chip embedded in the back of their skulls disabled. The Annex is 100 percent effective, but the unfortunate side effect is head-splitting pain.

"I'm too handsome to suffer like this," Headmaster Wilde howls, dramatically staggering to the waiting chairs that line the side of the Bunker's gymnasium, which we've equipped as our makeshift clinic.

"Come now, darling, you're the strongest man I know," his husband Isaac croons, injecting him with powerful painkilling medicine that's too expensive for us to buy for all of our patients. "And you could have done this ages ago in the privacy of our home, you know."

"I'm many things, but I'm not a man who suffers in silence," Wilde returns. "I am a man of the people, and I am with them now, in our collective moment of pain."

Personally, it's all I can do not to roll my eyes. All of the Throwback kids living in the Lab have had their chips disabled, with significantly less theatrics.

I'm distracted by Justus, who flashes me a grin after escorting an elderly woman to a chair and making sure she isn't one of the few who faints or suffers a seizure from the procedure.

"That's patient number 36 for me, and we haven't even hit lunch yet," Justus says.

"Professor Wilde should count for at least five patients, considering how long it took him to stop wiggling around," I grumble.

Justus and I compete each day to see who can perform the most procedures. It's the one bright spot in my life right now, and the only time I allow myself to set aside my guilt for the many mistakes I've made. After all, at least now I'm helping people.

Ever since we made the blueprints for the Annex public online, more clinics like ours are popping up all over the country. Still, ours is one of the few that is run only on donations, making it the busiest clinic in the country. Getting an appointment is like trying to land tickets to the newest play at the Showbox Theater.

"Let me introduce you to Lady Cleo," Harriet says to the newest group of Throwbacks that she's escorted into the Lab for this hour's round of appointments. "She'll walk you through our process."

The Throwbacks audibly gasp when they meet the Cleopatra clone, starstruck. Lady Cleo gives them her signature regal nod, and I know she's eating their reactions up. She's not the type to volunteer here every single day out of the goodness of her heart.

"Come on, you two," Harriet says, pulling Justus and I with her. "I know you'd stay here all day competing, but we need you."

"You win this time," I admit when Justus raises his eyebrows expectantly at me. "But tomorrow you're toast."

"We'll see," he says with a hint of cockiness in his voice that is both irritating and somehow also attractive.

His fingers brush mine, and I fight the urge to interlock our fingers. Even if being with him wouldn't kill me, he deserves to be with someone who doesn't have blood on her hands. Someone who's whole.

Since I lost Nic, there's a part of myself that's gone missing too. I distract myself with working at the Bunker and picking up the pieces of our failed revolution, but that feeling is always there, waiting for a quiet moment to creep up on me. One day, I'm afraid it will swallow me up until there's nothing left. I don't want Justus to get hurt when that day comes.

We enter an inner room at the heart of the Bunker where our core team can usually be found. Marie, our resident tech wizard, is at her laptop with Kat, an Evolved friend who became passionately invested in our cause. Sun, a strategic genius who is the brains behind our rebellion, is scrolling on his phone.