Enhancement

- - 72 - -

Needles. My heart drums against my ribs, filling my ears with its pounding. My legs feel unstable, and I'm terrified of taking a step forward. I wish I could stifle the fear and run, but I can't. I can't.

"Miss Renner, sit down," the Screener says again, more sternly this time.

My legs resume walking towards the table, but I'm fighting uselessly against it, trapped within my own mind once again. My lips won't move, my feet won't stop. I am powerless against the nation's precious Enhancement Project.

I can't stand the terror. Just when I thought the Equinox would be a harmful little loyalty test, the Project grabs me by the collar and rattles me with an iron grip.

Don't forget about me, the Project would say if it could. When you're declared unstable or disloyal in the nation, a one-way trip to my pale prison will fix you. Add a screening and a lifetime of fear, and you're mine. The Equinox is just a test. I can ruin your life.

My body sits in the chair before the Screener, all of this without my permission. It's the most horrible feeling in the world. Like I'm caged within my own mind and no matter how much I try to fight back I fail.

"Your pin," the Screener says. My arm outstretches and drops the black pin in the Screener's hand. I yell, scream, command my arm to stop but my fingers hardly twitch.

Unwillingly, I watch the Screener swipe the pin across a device. For a second the Screener stay completely still.

"Never mind about the needles," the Screener says. "Looks like you already had your vaccines. I just need to remove your Equinox sensor from the base of your neck."

The Screener leaps from her seat and hurries around the table, grabbing one of the injectors. Before I can even think to yell the words "no" or "don't," it's too late.

"What on Earth..." the Screener says. She prods the back of my neck. "That looks like your skin is burnt."

Cold fear seeps down my throat. She knows the marks from the knife are burns. I try to spew out a lie, but no words leave my mouth. I'm screwed.

The Screener has no mercy. She slams her injector into my neck anyway as I internally scream. After a moment, she shoves her device in front of my eyes, waving it.

"This is not what the sensor should look like," she says. The small metal speck is slightly melted and definitely damaged. "You tampered with it."

I can't even respond. My lips are slammed shut by the technology within me. This time I have no defense, no plan, no idea what the heck to do. I destroyed that sensor without a second thought of being caught. Blindsided and caught.

The Screener jerks me up from the chair, grabbing my arms and shoving them behind my back. She snaps two ElectriWrist cuffs on my hands like bulky bracelets.

"Holland Renner," she starts, growling in my ear and yanking on my arm. It's enough to make me half-whimper. "You're under a screening order for breaking the national motto."

My thoughts freeze and shatter into a million pieces. "Screening? What? No!" I want to screech.

Without a care, the harsh, stinging truth punches me in the stomach. It doesn't matter what I think.

The Screener shoves me and forces me down the hall. I protest, struggle, and kick, but my limbs force me into obedience. My blood pulses as cold adrenaline beats through me.

Finally the Project relinquishes its control back to me, but I still can't speak or yell or spit profanities. It's no use. Somehow I manage to twist around for a short second. Stephen is too hidden for me to catch a glimpse of him. I choke out a silent sob.

The world spirals downwards in slow motion, unwilling to let me go free. The Screener who cuffed me transfers me to two other Screeners, who then take me into an elevator and onto the building's roof. It's no use for me to kick or fight them. I have nowhere to run and everywhere to be re-captured.

The air outside is dryly warm, the sky dark and the city out of view. Screeners push me to my knees on the roof. I release a cry before the swoosh of pavement closes in on my face, and then I'm screaming in pain. Just like the screenings for Stephen and that little boy, they slammed my head against the ground.

The splitting agony is excruciating, worse than all my Enhancement Project torture sessions combined. I can handle a punch, but not a blow to the head via concrete. The world spins and pulses into my skull until I nearly vomit.

"Pull out your screening injection before she hurls," one of the Screeners says to the other. They keep their hands firm on my arms but I'm fading in and out. I sway shakily on my knees. "Hurry, this freak is disgusting."

It takes a moment before I actually throw up, and then someone stabs my arm with the injection. The world continue to churn until I feel drowsy. Thoughts fail to form anymore. The pain keeps beating until I black out.

It's all over now.

-- -- -- -- --

iron grip was the winner! and the whole screening thing was "scifiwriter's idea." are you surprised at my wicked ideas and much-too-frequent plot twists?

you know me better than that ;) now YOU GUYS are going to decide what will happen to holland next...

Question: Choose an option: back to the Project, back to the Pod, or back to society for one last horror.

PS: above when the Screener mentions Holland already having the "vaccine," it's referring to the Enhancement Project technology inside her. Remember back to an earlier chapter where Holland and Stephen were Screeners and had to administer those "vaccines" to a bunch of people who all stood up at the same time after that? And then the rebels attacked and they fled. then commander delphin found them in that underground room in their apartment building and took them to Pod 14? It's like that :)