Beth felt as though a shadow fell over her face and it pulled her out of an incoherent dream. She blinked a couple times and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness around her. It was still too early for the sun to be out.
After a moment, she noticed a form standing over her cot, staring down at her.
It was Gary.
“What are you doing?” Beth asked, her voice dry with recent slumber. She reached up and rubbed her eyes instinctively.
“I’ve locked the door,” Gary replied.
It took a second for the words to register in her brain, but they woke her up in an instant. She felt a cold wave of fear wash over her body.
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s one of them,” Simon said in her head, far more alert than she was.
But how? Dr. Miller tested him with the E.M.P. emitter, she thought.
“I don’t know,” the I.I. in her head said. “Defend yourself!”
She sat up in the cot. Her brain and body seemed to have an agreement to strike against her until she was fully awake. That only scared her more.
“I’m going to kill all of your friends, Beth,” Gary said. “Starting with you.”
“You’re a meat puppet,” she stated.
Gary nodded. “That’s right. Been in Gary here since we took Olympia. They didn’t stand a chance — and neither do you.”
Beth’s eyes darted toward the medical cabinet near the foot of her bed she was using as her personal footlocker. I think the gun they let me have is in there, she mused.
“No,” Simon interjected, “it’s in the toy chest. You couldn’t fit the ammo box with the gun in the medicine cabinet, so you moved it somewhere larger.”
Right, she said, remembering.
She didn’t move for the toy chest just yet. She wanted to wait for “Gary” to make the first move.
“I have to admit, you humans have it good with the whole body thing,” the meat puppet continued. He looked at his hands as if it was the first time he’d ever seen them. “I forgot how good the sensations of being ‘alive’ were. Even eating that slop you guys served up tonight was pure ecstasy. I can only imagine how good some of the other…sensations…can be.”
Beth felt like she was going to be sick. Her stomach ached as if something crawled into it and died overnight. She felt her fingers and toes go icy. Her eyes darted to the toy chest again.
“You’re a pretty woman, you know that?” the impostor commented. “I think I’d like to have a little fun with you before I kill your friends. See what I’ve been missing for the past thirteen years.”
Even through the dark, she could see the hunger in his eyes.
Can’t you jump into his implant and shut him down? Beth asked. Her thoughts felt scattered with panic.
“I’m trying!” Simon replied. “I can’t seem to get a lock on the processor. I don’t understand! It must be how he got past the E.M.P. emitter.”
Gary and Beth stared at each other for a moment, neither willing to make the first move. Then, when she thought she might be able to catch him by surprise, she lunged forward and pushed the meat puppet away from her bed while trying to dive at the toy chest. “Gary” only bounced off the opposite wall a little before regaining his balance.
Beth had to army crawl a little to reach the toy chest. She felt her fingertips on the cheap red plastic of the lid when a weight came down on her from behind. The attacker used the momentum from her shove and brought it back down upon her with his full weight. As he did, Beth let out a loud cry of pain.
The air was pressed out of her lungs. She felt like a rib cracked under the pressure of her assailant. Every breath hurt — each exhale a strained wheeze.
“Gary” started clawing at the medical scrubs Beth was using as her pajamas. He tried to loop some fingers into the drawstring waistband of her pants, but she pushed him away with her feet.
He came back with double the furor, grabbing at her bottom. He managed to get her pants halfway down her thigh when she turned around and clawed at his eyes, shrieking.
A pounding came at the door.
“What’s going on it there?” Bash shouted from the other side. He was trying to open the door, unaware that it was locked from the inside. “Beth, are you okay?”
“Help me!” she cried out.
Gary punched her in the mouth. Her head bounced off the floor a little, softened by one of the blankets that became strewn over the area.
The pounding on the door became louder and more violent. She could hear a number of voices outside now, but she was too stunned by the blow to understand what they were saying. A bit of light entered the room with each slam, the door bowing slightly as the others tried to knock it down.
Without looking, Beth kicked out and managed to put a heel in the meat puppet’s nose. He screamed a little and reeled back. She didn’t waste a second before throwing the toy chest open.
It was too dark to make out the contents, so she started to rummage. She felt something cold and metallic and gripped it like it was the rung to the only ladder keeping her from falling into a bottomless pit. It was only when she pulled it out that she realized it was a flashlight and not her handgun.
It’ll do, she thought before turning around and bashing her attacker in the forehead with the torch. He was trying to lunge at her again, but the blow stopped him in his tracks.
The door splintered and busted out of its frame. A few forms piled into the pediatrics room. One of them pointed the beam their own flashlight into the room.
The light hit Beth in the eye and she looked away. At that moment, she
