“Here, let me help…” Two little hands help Kaarina off the floor and walk her to a window with an airing vent. Sanna opens the vent and pulls out the grid. “You’ll fit. The scar-skull who brought me Mister Bun-Bun did.”
Kaarina sits on the window shelf, grabs her legs, one at a time, and shoves them through the gap in the window. Once she’s out, she falls like an abandoned rag doll dropping off a table. Outside, she does her best to stand on her own two feet, as wobbly as they are. She turns back to face the girl on the other side of the window.
“Listen, I won’t be coming back. But you can look for me. In your mind, just try and picture me and search for me.… It sounds crazy. But you’ll see. You just need to skip your pills for one night. And you’ll be able to talk to me again.”
Sanna cocks her head a bit, stares at Kaarina with her wide round eyes. The sound of doors opening close by her room alarms her. Leaning forward she stage-whispers, “I’ll do it tonight. I get it. It’s like talking to a spirit or a ghost. I’ll do what you said.”
“No, that’s not spiritual what I—”
The door to Sanna’s room opens right after she closes the window. Somehow the girl has time to take a quick step to her gaming chair and throw herself on it. The AR-glasses back on her face, she looks like she’s been watching cartoons all along. When a guard walks in, Kaarina ducks down.
“They’ll continue their search outside any minute now. You got to run. Or crawl. I don’t give a damn if you roll, just get out of there.”
Her feet are shaky underneath her, but Kaarina takes off running anyway. At the corner of the building she trips on her own feet, falls flat on her face on the frozen ground. It’s getting dark. Is it nighttime? How long has she been drugged for?
Lying flat against the cold ground, she hears someone yelling from the front yard. Two or three minutes, that’s all she has until they’ll circle the building and find her limp on the ground with mud in her mouth. She might as well let them. But it’s either her promise to Bill, or a pure rush of adrenaline that keeps her fighting for one more successful escape from the Chip-Center.
“Check the side yard and the back.” It’s Doctor Solomon, calling out to the guards.
Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.
A movement in the distance catches her eye. Across the rapeseed field, a man jumps up and down, waving his hands fiercely. He ducks back into the shadows of the trees, then jumps forward again waving, then disappears again behind the thick spruce tree.
“It’s the blue-boy, Kay. Go to him!”
“Who?”
“Your first escort customer, what’s his face… Mike? Mannie?”
Her eyes clear and lock on the frantically jumping man.
“Markus.”
Just as the guard’s footsteps get closer, about to turn the corner, Kaarina takes off running. Instead of trying to get out through the main entrance, she heads toward the stone wall.
Stumbling and tripping, she somehow makes her way to the wall. It’s the same one where she once found a carving with a message she didn’t take to heart, back when she still had the option to choose.
Without looking back, she jumps against the wall, placing her bare feet on the rough stones. Her fingers search for handholds. She’s almost at the top.
“Do not look back, do not look back, do not look back…” The words tumble from her numb lips like a mantra.
Another shout pierces the crisp air. “Side yard all clear! Check the back!”
Her stomach now flat against the top of the wall, she slides her legs over and lets her body drop. This time the landing leaves her winded.
“Back is clear, no sign of the test subject!”
Her vision blurred, her mind and body fatigued, she stares at Markus’s figure in the distance. An image of Sanna’s straight black hair dances at the back of her mind. Random thoughts take over, making it impossible for her to focus on escape.
Why didn’t the Unchipped kill Sanna’s rabbit?
Does Bill always have strawberry margaritas and cheesecake for breakfast?
Why were there so many pills spread around mother’s dead body, when the pill bottle never dropped from her cold hand?
“Hey, Kid?”
Her eyelids heavy, she looks up for a split second. Then she lets her forehead fall back into the frozen mud. Markus is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s gone, or perhaps he’s only hiding behind the trees.
The hurried footsteps of the guards thud from the other side of the wall, along with heavy breathing and swearing. One of them stops only a meter or two away from Kaarina’s resting body.
“Kid? You there? Some weird Yankee told me to tap for you. Said you’d pay well if I helped you out. He’s a pain in the ass, won’t leave me be. Where you at?”
The corner of her mouth twitches when she hears Yeti describing Bill. Bullseye.
“Kay-Kay, that’s Yeti. He’s coming for you. He’ll help you out. But you need to wake up, now.”
A small chuckle escapes her lips. “Yeti. And a Yankee. Sitting. In a tree…” she says, mumbling quietly.
“Kid? The Yankee says you’re at a brain-drill center? Wait… Okay, and something about yellow dead flowers and a carved stone wall. Not sure if this lunatic is right in the head, but I’m almost at the Chip-Center, I assume that’s where you are.”
“That’s what I just said to this Neanderthal, a Chip-Center!”
Their frantic voices muffled and distant at the back of her mind, Kaarina drifts off to the sound of retreating footsteps and faraway cries. Her body seems to flatten into the hard ground.
“Okay, Kid. Some blue-suited weirdo with a mop-top just showed me where you are. I’m coming to get you.”
CHAPTER 5 — BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE
Kaarina’s head bounces against something hard. She slowly opens her eyes, finds that she’s hanging upside down.
Moss, pine needles,
