The 5th Wave

at the examination table.

The nurse comes back in, followed by the doctor. Dr. Pam is as tall and thin as the nurse is short and round. Immediately, Sammy feels calmer. There is something about the tall doctor lady that reminds him of his mother. Maybe it’s the way she talks to him, looking directly into his eyes, her voice warm and gentle. Her hands are warm, too. She doesn’t wear gloves to touch him like the nurse did.

She does what he expects, the doctor stuff he’s used to. Shines a light in his eyes, in his ears, down his throat. Listens to him breathe through the stethoscope. Rubs just beneath his jaw, but not too hard, all the while humming softly under her breath.

“Lie all the way back, Sam.”

Firm fingers pressing on his belly.

“Any pain when I do this?”

She has him stand up, bend over, reach for his toes, while she runs her hands up and down along his spine.

“Okay, sport, hop back on the table.”

He jumps back quickly onto the crinkly paper, sensing the visit is almost over. There won’t be a shot. Maybe they’ll prick his finger, and that’s no fun, but at least there won’t be a shot.

“Hold out your hand for me.”

Dr. Pam places a tiny gray tube no larger than a grain of rice into his palm.

“Know what this is? It’s called a microchip. Did you ever have a pet, a dog or a cat, Sammy?”

No. His father is allergic. He always wanted a dog, though.

“Well, some owners put a device very much like this one into their pets in case they run away or get lost. This one’s a little different, though. It puts out a signal that we can track.”

It goes just underneath the skin, the doctor explains, and no matter where Sammy is, they’ll be able to find him. Just in case something happens. It’s very safe here at Camp Haven, but just a few months ago everyone thought the world was safe from an alien attack, so now we have to be careful, we have to take every precaution…

He stops listening after the words underneath the skin. They’re going to inject that gray tube into him? Fear begins to gnaw anew around the edges of his heart.

“It won’t hurt,” the doctor says, sensing the nibbling fear. “We give you a little shot to numb you first, and then you’ll have just a small sore spot for a day or two.”

The doctor is very kind. He can see that she understands how much he hates shots and she really doesn’t want to do it. She has to do it. She shows him the needle used for the shot to numb him. It’s very tiny, hardly wider than a human hair. Like a mosquito bite, the doctor says. That isn’t so bad. He’s been bitten by mosquitoes lots of times. And Dr. Pam promises he won’t feel the gray tube go in. He won’t feel anything at all after the numbing shot.

He lies on his tummy, tucking his face into the crook of his elbow. The room is cold, and the swipe of the alcohol at the base of his neck makes him shudder violently. The nurse tells him to relax. “The more you tense up, the sorer you’ll be,” she tells him. He tries to think of something nice, something that will take his mind off what’s about to happen. He sees Cassie’s face in his mind’s eye, and he’s surprised. He expected to see his mother’s face.

Cassie is smiling. He smiles back at her, into the crook of his arm. A mosquito that must be the size of a bird bites down hard on the back of his neck. He doesn’t move, but whimpers softly against his skin. In less than a minute, it’s over.

Number forty-nine has been tagged.

40

AFTER THE DOCTOR bandages the insertion point, she makes a note in his chart, hands the chart to the nurse, and tells Sammy there’s just one more test.

He follows the doctor into the next room. It’s much smaller than the examination room, hardly larger than a closet. In the middle of the room is a chair that reminds Sammy of the one at his dentist’s, narrow and high-backed, thin armrests on either side.

The doctor tells him to have a seat. “Lean all the way back, head back, too, that’s right. Stay relaxed.”

Whirrr. The back of the chair lowers, the front rises, bringing up his legs until he is almost fully reclined. The doctor’s face comes into view. Smiling.

“Okay, Sam, you’ve been very patient with us, and this is the last test, I promise. It doesn’t last long and it doesn’t hurt, but sometimes it can be a little, well, intense. It’s a test of the implant we just put in. To make sure it’s working okay. It takes a few minutes to run, and you have to keep very, very still. That can be hard to do, can’t it? You can’t wiggle or squirm or even scratch your nose, or it will ruin the test. Think you can do that?”

Sammy nods. He is returning the doctor’s warm smile. “I’ve played freeze tag before,” he assures her. “I’m really good at it.”

“Good! But just in case, I’m going to put these straps around your wrists and ankles, not very tight, but just in case your nose does start to itch. The straps will remind you to keep still. Would that be okay?”

Sammy nods. When he’s strapped in, she says, “Okay, I’m going to step over to the computer now. The computer is going to send a signal to calibrate the transponder, and the transponder is going to send a signal back. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds, but it may feel longer—maybe a lot longer. Different people react in different ways. Ready to give it a try?”

“Okay.”

“Good! Close your eyes. Keep them closed until I say you can open them. Take big, deep breaths. Here we go. Keep those eyes closed now. Counting down from three…two…one…”

A blinding white fireball explodes inside Sammy Sullivan’s head. His body stiffens; his legs strain against the restraints; his tiny fingers lock on to the chair arms. He hears the doctor’s soothing voice on the other side of the blinding light, saying, “It’s all right, Sammy. Don’t be afraid. Just a few more seconds, I promise…”

He sees his crib. And there’s Bear lying next to him in the crib, and then there’s the mobile of stars and planets spinning lazily over his bed. He sees his mother, leaning over him, holding a spoonful of medicine and telling him he has to take it. There’s Cassie in the backyard, and it’s summer and he’s toddling around in a pair of Pull-Ups, and Cassie is spraying water from the hose high into the air so a rainbow springs up out of nothing. She whips the hose back and forth, laughing as he chases it, the fleeting, uncatchable colors, shimmering splinters of the golden light. “Catch the rainbow, Sammy! Catch the rainbow!”

The images and memories pour out of him, like water rushing down a drain. In no more than ninety seconds, the entirety of Sammy’s life roars out of him and into the mainframe, an avalanche of touch and smell and taste and sound, before fading into the white nothingness. His mind is laid bare in the blinding white, all that he has experienced, all that he remembers, and even those things that he can’t remember; everything that makes up the personality of Sammy Sullivan is pulled and sorted and transmitted by the device at the base of his neck into Dr. Pam’s computer.

Number forty-nine has been mapped.

41

DR. PAM UNDOES the straps and helps him out of the chair. Sammy’s knees give out. She holds on to his arms to keep him from falling. His stomach heaves, and he vomits on the white floor. Everywhere he looks, black blobs jiggle and bounce. The big, unsmiling nurse takes him back to the examination room, puts him on the table, tells him everything is fine, asks if she can bring him anything.

“I want my bear!” he screams. “I want my daddy and my Cassie and I want to go home!”

Dr. Pam appears beside him. Her kind eyes glow with understanding. She knows what he’s feeling. She tells