Project Sable Rose, Wolfheart [online e reader TXT] 📗

bad for her. Her livelihood would go flush

. “Her injuries were severe, so I wanted some help that would include saving her life, not making her a vegetable. I was upset that she was injured on a government project that was unstable for even her skill. And I‘m pissed that you people aren’t letting me out of here to see her surgery.”
The man jotted down the answer – as if it wasn’t the exact same from last time – and rose.
“A man will be in shortly to show you to your temporary resting quarters.”
Shit. I’m never leaving this place…and all I wanted was my sister to stay alive…

*****

Deseray sat up at the approach of a doctor.
“Sable Rose is now stable. She has two prosthetic limbs. Her heart and the left side of her brain were not able to be saved. Because of this, we installed computers into them and gave her a shot that will enable her to use them like a normal human does organs.”
Deseray slumped into her seat with relief, grief and amazement. He’d done it; he’d saved her sister’s life…
Now it’s time for me to help save the next life…

“Um…sir…how do I…uh…volunteer…for medical testing?”
He looked surprised. Then he smiled gently. “Though I don’t personally advice it for your age, there are forms on the front desk. Fill them out only after you’ve thought heavily about it. Girls your age and your rank should be focusing on improving your marksmanship and caring for your sister, not taking drugs and shoving needles into their arms. The unstable items could cause serious and permanent damage.”
“And it could be my body that tells them it’s too dangerous to give to people like my sister.” She told him quietly. “Almost everybody here has a family; they are here to protect that family, and that’s what I’m doing.”
He nodded. “There’s one more thing…Terra Lain has been moved into the psych ward for a few months. Her grief is making her a bit unstable. If you do any testing, be careful. I don’t think she would handle both of you being in critical conditions.”
“I’ll try.”
He left, looking as troubled as she felt.
I’m just glad that the H.A.D doctors are more considerate than the CEO’s. They actually care. Maybe that’s why their placed as doctors, though. They make poor anything else because they want to save everybody without hurting them.

She got up, determined now, and took a form for medical volunteering. Looking at it, she saw it was like a medical slip to go to the doctors, only there were questions that could prove a person wasn’t mentally stable.
I guess Terra can’t volunteer…

Then she pushed the thought from her mind and began.

*****

Terra wasn’t shocked when she answered the door to find a man in H.A.D uniform. At first, she expected the worst; something had gone wrong with Sable Rose’s surgery. Then she saw he had a bag with neatly folded and pressed bright orange uniform in his hand. It was a patient outfit.
“Are you prepared for the testing?” He asked.
She took the clothes and changed at the door, already used to the men not allowing her privacy. At least this one turned the other way and looked a little embarrassed. Most of them gawked at her as if she wasn’t sane enough to know they were getting boners from their privileged careers.
“I’m ready.” She explained, stepping out. He nodded and began to walk toward the H.A.D building. After about twenty minutes of walking, they came to a large door that literally told them;

Warning; Testing in Sequence. Please enter Staff Identification Card or step away from door.

The man whipped out a fancy card and slid it through a card slot. The slot beeped, turned green and showed a key puncher.
“Please enter Staff Identification License.” The door’s computer said.
He pressed a huge number sequence that nobody could have hopes of remembering without using it thirty times a day. He seemed to use every damn number on the board at least three times. The door swung open. He gestured for her to follow him. She entered the room right behind him.
It was a large room with a two-way mirror on one side and lots of different machines and heavy-looking exercise equipment throughout the room. He led her to a bath-tub like thing that had glass over it. There were chords inside and tubes that disappeared into the floor on the outside.
“Please get inside and lay down. I will attach the chords and glasses. We are doing vision testing, as well as testing the electrons in your brain. To further understand them, there will be tests run inside this device. The risks are rare, but have still occurred. They are severe migraines, trouble recalling events we trigger and blindness.”
She lay down and relaxed as he attached stuff to her head and placed a pair of goggles on her. They dimmed everything to dull shadows. Then he stepped back and shut the glass lid. She closed her eyes.
“Can you hear us?” A voice asked through a microphone.
“Yes.”
“Alright. We’re going to need your eyes open. Listen very closely and respond to what you hear and see.”
She opened her eyes. Before her was a snowy plane similar to where she grew up. The sound of dogs barking brought back memories of when her family hunted elk every month. In fact, she heard her parents call to her. Her eyes went wide. This…this was a real memory…

This was Sable Rose’s fifteenth birthday; the day everything changed.
She ignored the tears running down her eyes, steeling herself just in time for the electric shock that raced through her body. This time she gritted her teeth and held on, refusing to scream or even flinch. She focused on the memory, holding on to it as if it were life or death. She would not let go of this one! She would hold on, even if she died trying! The charge seemed to be dying, the pain easing, even though she could feel her body convulsing yet from the shock. There were shocked murmurs coming from the microphone.
“Her heart rate is increasing. Her brain activity has sky rocketed! I’ve never seen this! Look! She’s using her entire brain at once! What in the name of science is going on?!”
There was something wrong? She couldn’t tell. She just wanted everything to stop

.
Everything shut down.
She sighed, breathing hard, exhausted.
Before the top opened, Terra Lain was unconscious.

*****

Deseray Iris listened to her sister in her room, quietly muttering about something in another language. She was fast asleep, but her eyes were open. It was the strangest thing she’d ever seen in her entire life – and H.A.D soldiers saw a lot of bizarre things.
“Is she insane?” She asked the man to her left. He’d called himself her ‘handler’ as if she were some ill-trained dog. He was tall with long black hair and a goatee. Lanky as an athletic runner, he gave her the creeps. His attitude rang ‘trouble’. He even wore black sunglasses and a suite, as if he were some rich guy who owned a zoo of expensive animals.
“No. She’s speaking Japanese – an ancient language that died out over eighty years ago, soon after the third World War. It’s incredible. She’d actually activated a part of her mind that is able to cross into the spiritual world, as well as into another person’s mind. But we can’t figure out why. That’s what we need you for.” The man explained. “So that we can safely make these kinds of changes to a person without this kind of suffering. Do you want everybody put through this to go through such pain?”
She stared at her sister, who muttered something in painful gasps.
“I don’t give a fuck about the other people, but I do want that

to stop. Will this help her?”
“If we go far enough, it will. We can make changes in her to help her, yes. We need to know what went wrong before we can.”
“Then I’ll do it. But if this happens to me, and doesn’t help her, then you’re number one on my hit list, fucker.”
He looked a little unnerved, but nodded. “It begins tomorrow. Be prepared.”
“What time?”
“When I pick you up.”
She grabbed hold of his shirt, lifted him up and slammed him against the wall.
“What. Time.”
“S-six! S-six hundred hours!” He gasped, his eyes bugging as he grabbed her hands and struggled to push the much smaller girl away. She released him suddenly. He dropped to his knees, hands over his neck. Deseray looked one last time at her sister and walked back to her room.

The man Deseray had threatened wasn’t there to escort her; it was some terrified, walk-on-your-toes chick. She handed her a bag of black clothing, then took her without saying a thing into a heavily secure room (the girl used a key-card and every damn number on the pound pad like three times) full of tech-junk and heavy tools. She took her to something like a bathtub with tubes and chords all over it. The top was glass.
“Get in.” She said quietly.
“Why?”
“This is where we test you.”
“What does it do?”
“I have no idea; I’m not a medical officer; I’m a secretary.”
Cowards.

She got in and lay down. The woman put chords on her temple and forehead, then goggles on her. Then she closed the lid.
“Deseray Iris?” A man asked.
“Yes.”
“Lay still and watch closely. Some memories will be retracted from your mind, and we need you to focus on those and not what’s happening otherwise. Don’t hold back screams, groans or tears. We need to know your pain and emotion to get accurate results.”
No wonder she’s fucked up; they’ve hurt her daily!

“So you’re the ones who screwed with my sister’s head?”
“Please pay attention to the work ahead of us, Deseray.”
“Fine.”
There was a beeping, a flash of light and then…dogs.
The sound of howling and barking, growling surrounded Deseray. Fear engulfed her mind. She felt a gun heavy in her hands. It was dark. Yellow eyes surrounded her. Crackling flames heated her back.
The day the house burned…

She screamed as a dog leaped from the pack, at her neck.
She didn’t know how to use the gun.
Just before it crashed into her, something flickered.
Agony! Her head! It was on fire!
Everything went blank.
The agony raged on, spreading through her body until she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
Something hissed slowly and above her. People were shouting, but she couldn’t focus on anything but the pain. She couldn’t see! She couldn’t see! The mask was off her, but she couldn’t see! Something grabbed her and tugged her up, then shrieked “My arm! My arm! It’s on fire!”
She collapsed onto something hard, crying. Gentle hands guided her to her feet and away from the screams. They walked for a time, Deseray allowing the person to guide her. The person laid her on something warm and soft.
“Sleep, child.” A soothing voice whispered in her ear. It was female, it was familiar…
It was Terra Lain.
She was asleep.

Chapter Two
Re-awakening

Beep. Drip. Drop. Beep.
It was all she could hear. Sable couldn't think or see. Something