The Network

by TwilightCircle


"Only Following Orders"

“Restraints.”

The pressure of the leather straps barely registered in Deborah’s mind as she was bound to the chair. She flinched as one of the doctors gripped her left arm roughly, turning it over and exposing a bulging vein.

Deborah forced her eyes open, but found herself unable to identify any of the room’s occupants through her plaguing mental fog.

“Will her parents ask questions?”

“Unlikely. Her file says they’ve been largely absent throughout her life. An accident child, that same old sob-story.”

“Good, report a relocation. Let’s get this over with.

One of the silhouettes took a slender metal tube in hand, at the end of which was a long, transparent tube. “How many CCs?” she asked.

A second silhouette wheel to face Deborah. “Make it 500, Smith. I don’t want to take any chances with her.”

Smith nodded. She opened a metal locker at the end of the room and withdrew a bag of clear liquid.

Deborah jolted back to consciousness as Smith hung the bag from a pole to her right. Screaming and thrashing against the straps with all her might.

“The torso, too.” Raleigh pointed to Deborah’s chest.

Raleigh’s associates moved toward Deborah, drawing the last and largest of the bindings over Deborah’s midsection. Unable to budge, Deborah threw herself back against the seat.

“I don’t understand,” she managed to whisper as her lips quavered.

Raleigh sighed as he approached her and cupped his hand over hers. “We don’t either, sweetheart. We’re just following orders.”

“But—”

Deborah let out a tiny cry as Smith pierced the vein on her left arm with a needle. She watched in horror as the female physician hung the transparent bag from a stand to her left.

“I thought you were going to treat me,” Deborah whispered desperately, her entire body shaking as tears streamed down her face.

“Please don’t make this any harder than it already is,” Raleigh begged, gripping her hand tighter still. “Start the recording,” he told the two unoccupied doctors.

“Got it,” one of them replied, depressing a button on a computer station behind Deborah. “You’re on.”

“This is Dr. Stephen Raleigh, recording from operation room nineteen on October 27, 2072. We have with us subject 2072-10-27B, Deborah Walters, who has been plagued with strabismus, or lazy eye, since she was born.”

Deborah sobbed as Smith placed her hand on the IV clip above her head. “Please, don’t do this.”

“It is the decision of the Collective that the more merciful action is to—”

“Raleigh,” one of the doctors seated behind Deborah broke in. “We’ve got a security breach.”

Raleigh grunted and rose from Deborah’s side. “What the hell is it this time?”

Deborah strained to turn her head as Raleigh stepped over to the monitors.

“Them again?” Raleigh groaned.

“Security said they busted through the emergency exit. They’re heavily armed.”

“Fatalities?”

“None so far. They’re only using stun weaponry.”

“Fine.” Raleigh stepped swiftly back to Deborah and motioned to Smith. “Seal the fire doors and start the drip; I don’t want to have a witness running around.”

Deborah screamed with all her might as Smith removed the clip from the bag. Instantly, a drowsy and uncaring feeling coursed through her body.

“Please, just tell me why,” Deborah said weakly.

Raleigh looked down on her for the briefest second, a pained expression flashing across his face. “Look…”

The macabre calm of the air was disrupted by the sound of shattering glass. Fragments of the tinted window sprayed the interior of the room.

Disruption wave!” a deep male voice bellowed.

Raleigh ducked beneath the wave of electricity passing over the room. Deborah could just make out the sound of three bodies slumping to the floor through her ever-fading hearing.

“Buzz him!”

Through drooping eyes, Deborah watched as Raleigh twisted and thrashed on the ground, a visible wave of electricity passing over his body.

“Clear!” a second voice shouted.

“Everyone inside, now!”

Deborah fought to keep her drooping eyes open as the four piled through the broken window.

One of the new faces glanced at the draining IV bag. “They’ve already started her.”

“Then get the damn antidote! James, Ali, watch the door.”

Deborah’s head jolted involuntarily at the sound of the second voice.

I know you.

She felt the flowing from the IV stop abruptly as one of her saviors attached a new substance to the drip. Only a lack of strength kept her from gasping as one of the men stooped over her. A tall, balding man…

Holding an ancient radio.

“Jarvis?” she said groggily as her eyes slid shut.

“Deborah?”Jarvis shouted. “Come on, Deborah, stay with me! What’s her status, Matt?”

“Heart rate… forty beats per minute and dropping,” Matt replied, clipping a heart monitor onto Deborah’s finger. “Fast,” he amended with a grimace, glancing at the electronic device in his hand.

“Brain activity?”

“Minimal. Core functions only.”

“Why the hell isn’t the antidote working?”

“She was already too far gone by the time we got in here!”

Jarvis pounded Deborah’s seat with a fist, running a hand down his face. “What are our options?”

Matt looked back at him with a blank expression, marred by the tiniest bit of regret.

“What are our options, Matt?” Jarvis repeated angrily.

Matt simply shook his head, looking down on Deborah with a sigh.

“No,” Jarvis whispered dangerously. “Not like this. There’s another way.”

He reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and withdrew three small suction cups; at the end of each, a USB port hung.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Matt demanded.

“Upload her.”

Matt stared at Jarvis incredulously, not moving a muscle. “What did you say?”

Did I stutter?” Jarvis shrieked, attaching the suction cups to Deborah’s forehead. He held each of the wires out to Matt without looking up. “Plug her in.”

“Jarvis, we can’t afford to take a risk like this!”

“A risk like what?” Jarvis asked, rising to full height. “What we can’t afford is another loss.”

“They’ll be able to trace any connection we make. If we try to upload her, how long will it be before they uncover the network entirely? Our existence depends on secrecy.”

“You’re not the one giving orders here,” Jarvis said dangerously.

“If you do this, you’re risking everything we’ve worked for. And for what? One witness? We’ve got hundreds.

Both men froze as the device in Matt’s hand let out a shrill whine. On the display, a solid line slid across the screen.

“Start the upload,” Jarvis growled through gritted teeth, “or killing her will be the last thing you ever do.”

Matt glared, extracting a laptop from his own backpack and attaching the wires to its ports. He depressed a key and looked back up to Jarvis. “Who do we replace with her?”

Jarvis looked at Deborah’s motionless body with narrowed eyes. “She’s too smart… she might accidentally tip someone off. Give her an unremarkable position, something unlikely to attract attention.”

“You want to give her memories, as well?”

“Absolutely,” Jarvis nodded, “and give her a temporary mind-wipe. The new life will keep her occupied long enough for us to figure out a long-term solution.”

“We’ve got activity!” Ali shouted from beside the window, brandishing his stun-rifle. “They’re trying to cut through the door!”

“On it,” Matt said as his computer let out a tiny beep. “That’s a wrap.” He slammed the lid of the laptop shut and stowed it in his supply bag.

Matt marched to the broken window, jumping out of the room with his companions. “Get the hell out of there, Jarvis! We have to move!”

Ali and James raised their weapons as the sound of dozens of voices grew louder outside the distant exit.

Jarvis waved him away, laying two fingers across Deborah’s limp wrist. He gritted his teeth as he felt her lack of a pulse.

He turned to the shattered window and jumped to join his companions. “I just hope to God it worked.”

*   *   *
“Mom? Mom, wake up!”

Ditzy Doo groaned, shifting under her bedcovers and pulling a pillow over her head. “Dinky, it’s Sunday,” she grumbled. “It’s my only day off.”

Dinky burst through her mother’s door and leapt onto the bed. “Mom’s don’t get days off; didn’t you know?”

“Just five more minutes, okay sweetheart?”

“Not a chance.” Dinky giggled, nuzzling the back of her mother’s head.

“Alright, alright!” Ditzy joined her daughter in laughter. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Dinky smiled and launched herself from the bed, sauntering out of the room.

That little filly… Ditzy smiled internally.

Stretching her neck from side to side, Ditzy rolled out of the bed and found herself painfully reunited with the concept of a “floor.”

“Sparkler?” she called down the stairs, taking a comb from her nightstand and running it through her hair. “Get the coffee started, would you?”

Ditzy looked into the bedroom mirror at her sunken eyes and drooping mouth and groaned. “And remind me to get an appointment scheduled at the salon.”

Throwing her hooves up in frustration, Ditzy opened her door and started down the stairs to the kitchen. Stumbling along the steps, she soon found herself in trudging across linoleum and to her dining table.

“Late night?” Sparkler asked, sliding a coffee mug across the table as she sat beside her mother.

“Not really,” Ditzy said, repressing a yawn. “I just kept having these weird nightmares. It was set in the future; that was all I could really tell. And I was some kind of weird, alien thing.”

“Alien thing?” Sparkler tilted her head.

“I had claws, like a dragon, except they weren’t pointy or scaly. They were kind of… fleshy.” Ditzy held her hooves out, turning them over and over and inspecting each closely.

“If you use one more word that ends in ‘y,’ I think you’re legally obligated to start writing children’s books,” Sparkler teased.

“Poke all the fun you want,” Ditzy said, turning her nose up and fighting the urge to smile. “I think the dream was fascinating.”

“Didn’t you just say it was a nightmare?”

“Everypony’s a critic,” Ditzy shrugged. “Did anything happen lately that I should know about?”

Sparkler turned her head up thoughtfully as she rose from her chair and trotted to the sink. “Let’s see… the roof fell in again, Dinky got detention for using magic to throw a bully into the river… just the normal disasters.”

“Come on, Sparkler, impress me!” Ditzy said with a grin.

“Oh, a letter came for you this morning!”

Ditzy’s grin fell slightly. “Somepony’s out for my job, eh?”

“Yeah, if anypony wants a job as the clumsiest mail-mare in Equestria,” Sparkler snickered, tossing an envelope to her mother.

“Still, a letter on Sunday? That’s a little strange. Did you see who delivered it?”

Sparkler shook her head. “As best I can tell, somepony dropped it in the mail slot before sunrise.

“Who in the world would want to contact me so badly?” Ditzy wondered as she tore the letter open. Her heart beating slightly faster, she withdrew a piece of parchment from the envelope. As she unfurled it, she found the message contained only three sentences.

Don't be so trusting of first glances. They'll be watching. Keep your guard up,” Ditzy mouthed, lowering her eyebrows.

“Something the matter, mom?” Sparkler asked, approaching the table.

“Keep your guard up,” Ditzy whispered reverently. She dropped the letter and raised her left hoof to eye level.

Her eyes began to drift apart as she stared, but the sensations coursing through her limb were unmistakable. The sensation of five digits extending past her hoof, and…

…the sensation of a needle, piercing her foreleg.