“Andi, no!” Jeremy’s cry fills the air. I crawl to the cliff’s edge and reach after Andi, who is falling, spinning in the air. Jennifer freefalls below her. Her wild laughter echoes off the cliff’s walls, and her face resembles a rabid animal. Andi turns again and her eyes meet mine. A strange peacefulness washes over her face before her body lands with a sickening crunch, her arms and legs positioned in unnatural angles.
“No!” I scream and slip further over the edge.
“Brett, stop. She’s gone,” Ryan cries as he clamps onto my legs and pulls me back.
“No, she’s not.” I fight to break free, but Ryan’s stronger. He drags me from the ledge and pulls me into his arms. I bang on his chest. “I won’t leave her down there. We’ve got to help her.” Desperate, I knee Ryan in the groin and break loose as he drops to the ground. “Brett!” he cries. “Somebody catch her!”
Dean and Gregg block the cliff, but that’s not where I’m going. I run back to the drill site and start tearing through bags. I slip on a harness and pull out the rest of the climbing equipment. I paw through the first aid kit only to realize nothing in there can help me. Band-Aids and cold packs aren’t what I need. I need a backboard, cervical collar, and splints. I dump out a backpack and fill it with everyone’s igloos, sleeping bags, and duct tape. Dean appears, and I thrust a roll of duct tape and a sleeping bag into his hands. “Find two long branches and make a stretcher. Once you’re done you and Gregg can lower it down.” I toss a harness at Jake. “I need you to gear up. With Ryan out of commission, you’re our next best climber.”
Jake catches the harness, but looks at it with disgust. Tears stream down his face. “Brett, the ropes aren’t long enough and even if they were—”
Half-crazed laughter bubbles from my throat. “No, the ledge. We need to get her.” Ryan hobbles over, but I avoid him and continue preparing the climbing gear.
Gabriella’s piercing scream from the cliff’s edge fills the air. “She’s right! I can see a leg. I can’t tell if it’s Jennifer or Andi, but someone is on a ledge not that far down.”
Gregg and Dean disappear into the woods in search of branches. Jake, Ryan, and I return to the cliff.
“I’ll call ahead to the hospital,” Molly yells. Ryan and Jake get the climbing equipment ready with me. I don’t wait on Jake. As soon as I have my equipment secured, I rappel down the cliff. I have to maneuver to avoid a pair of trees growing horizontally from the cliff’s face. Their stunted growth makes them no larger than tree branches, branches that would have completely hidden Andi from our view if I hadn’t watched the fall.
My stomach knots when I finally reach the ledge. I dread what I might find. Her left arm and right leg are clearly broken and crimson streaks run through her hair from a head wound. I kneel beside her and search for a pulse. She has one, but it’s weak. I rest a hand on her ribs and feel the shallow rise of her chest. She’s in bad shape, but alive.
All the quarantined weeks studying emergency medicine and I suddenly can’t remember a word of it. I close my eyes and struggle to calm myself down. Then I check her pupils—equal and reactive, an encouraging sign that there’s no brain damage.
Next, I focus on her arm and leg. The general rule is splint it as you find it, but that will make it impossible to fit her onto the stretcher, at least with her arm. Then I remember the second part of the splinting rule, pulse, movement, and sensation—I need all three to splint. I check the distal pulse on all her limbs. Both legs are good, but the broken arm lacks both a distal pulse and capillary refill.
Jake finally reaches the ledge and helps me with the broken leg. We pad sleeping bags around and between Andi’s legs and then tape them together to stabilize the broken one. I hesitate when it comes to the arm. I know what I need to do, but I also know it will hurt, a lot. I take a deep breath and carefully pull her arm into its anatomical position while monitoring its distal pulse. As soon as I feel her pulse return, I stop pulling and splint the arm to the side of her body using another sleeping bags and more duct tape. It looks horrible, but she has all her distal pulses now, and we can’t wait for proper equipment to arrive—I know how far she fell. She might not look that bad on the outside, but there’s probably plenty of internal damage. She could be slowly bleeding to death inside.
Collapsed, Andi’s igloo shelters are a thick silver rectangle about the size of a notebook or binder. I lay out in a line and then we duct tape them together to form a backboard. Jake helps me roll Andi onto the board. I pad a sleeping bag on each side of her head and tape her head to the board—the closest I can come to making head blocks. Then we use the remainder of the duct tape to secure the rest of her. The only way she’s getting out is if someone cuts her out.
Dean lowers the stretcher. Jake and I tilt our makeshift backboard, slide the stretcher under, and then re-hook it to the ropes. I yell up and Dean and Gregg pull up the stretcher. As I watch it ascend, I pray for a miracle. She didn’t wince or cry out once, not even when I moved her arm, and I’m not sure how much help my jury-rigged splints will be.
Jake and I climb us as fast as we can. Gabriella and Austin have waited in case we ran into any trouble and needed help. The four of us run to catch up with everyone else.
Jeremy and Isaac carry the stretcher. The path is too narrow for any more people to help. The most we can do is trail behind and trade off with Jeremy and Isaac when one of them tires. I peer around Isaac and watch Andi. Her chest jerks unevenly as she struggles for breath.
Andi’s still alive when we make it back to the open fields. A golf cart full of doctors whisks her away and leaves us behind. When we finally reach the hospital, the doctors won’t tell us anything except that she’s in surgery. So we wait.
When my adrenaline wears off, the horror of what has happened sinks in, and I begin to shake. The rest of the group is barely holding it together. I quietly slip outside before I fall to my knees and sob uncontrollably. Jennifer fell the full distance; she’s dead and Andi might die. I could have prevented it all if I’d just told Jeremy to have his ex sleep upside down or if I’d rewired Jennifer’s pod, but I did nothing.
I hear the door close behind me, and Ryan kneels next to me and holds me while I cry. I keep crying until my tears run out. Ryan gently lifts me to my feet and coaxes me back inside.
There’s still no news on Andi.
Elliot, Austin, and Cam volunteer to go back out and collect all the equipment. Security sends a search party to locate and retrieve Jennifer’s body. Elliot returns to tell us they found Jennifer’s remains.
We continue to wait for news on Andi.
Security interviews each of us, but still, the time passes too slowly. Andi has hours of surgery ahead of her, and all we can do is sit and wait for word on her condition. I scan the faces of my friends and see fear and despair.
Jeremy, pale and trembling, sits and rubs his hands against his thighs futilely attempting to remove Andi’s blood. Occasionally, his gaze darts around the room, but mostly it stays transfixed on the wall opposite him. I can’t tell if he’s replaying the accident over and over or trying to steel his heart against the news we dread. He shudders, and a strangled sob escapes him. Molly squeezes his hand.
I reach up and rest a hand against Ryan’s cheek, and he rests his chin on my shoulder and whispers, “Andi’s strong. If anyone can pull through this, she can.” I close my eyes, stifle a sob, and pray that he’s right though I know how far she fell.
Much later that night or maybe very early the next morning, Dr. Wickerham appears and tells us that Andi has made it through her surgeries, but she refuses to tell us any more than that and insists we go to bed. She has one of the doctors usher us out. I can read between the lines. She won’t tell us anything more, because she thinks Andi won’t survive. I drop behind the group without our escort noticing. Ryan notices and nods. He knows there’s no way I’ll leave Andi, not yet.
I sneak through the halls until I find Andi. She looks horrible. Bruises have blossomed all over her face and body. A cast covers her left arm and right leg, and a tube extends down her throat. She is connected to more tubes and wires than I can count. I hold onto her hand.
“Stay,” I whisper. “If anyone can fight their way through this, it’s you. So stay with us, if not for me, then for Jeremy and everyone else who loves and needs you. Please, please stay.”
I hear footsteps and search for a spot to hide. I duck behind a curtain and discover another hospital bed, just like the one Andi’s in. I hop on it and wait for the nurse or doctor to leave, but when they do, someone else enters. Someone’s always in the room, checking her vitals or something. I remain seated on the bed, listening to the sound of her heart monitor. Eventually, I drift into sleep.
I wake up to heated voices.
“Do you care to explain just why you insisted on meeting me down here, and at this hour, Dr. Wickerham?” The voice is gruff, deep. I keep still and quiet my breath.
“I wanted you to see the results of your matchmaker program firsthand.”
“The girl’s alive, she’ll recover,” the voice says dismissively. I’ve heard that tone before, from the chairman.
“She’ll probably spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Though she’s better off than the girl the found in pieces at the bottom of the cliff,” Dr. Wickerham explains. I shove my fist into my mouth to keep from crying out.
“And how exactly do you think this ties into the matchmaker program?” the chairman asks in an overly innocent tone.
“Because the dead girl is the ex-girlfriend. She pushed this girl, the current girlfriend, over the cliff in a fit of deranged jealousy.”
His voice takes on a threatening edge. “You’ve never been a supporter of the matchmaker program, Dr. Wickerham. I hardly think one incident is enough to end a program that is working so beautifully.”
Dr. Wickerham doesn’t back down. “You need to climb down from you cushy office more often. You know very well this isn’t the first incident—just the first death. We both know the relationships you claim are working so beautifully aren’t. Take my doctors and nurses for example. So many of them are conflicted. They may be biologically compatible, but a part of them knows the relationship is all wrong, no matter how much you increase the program’s strength.”
Sounding smug, the chairman says, “The adjustments were necessary to counteract the resistant thread we’d run into.”
I hear something metal slam down. “Just like the adjustments that were needed for Dr. Brant’s program.”
“Field managers don’t have programming.” Even from behind my curtain, I know the chairman is lying.
Dr. Wickerham’s voice drips with rage. “Oh please. You may have everyone else fooled, but Katelyn’s my friend who’s been turned into a hateful zombie.”
“So that’s what this is really about. You know Dr. Brant left me no choice. She was obsessed with those missing scientists. After her harebrained rescue attempt, I had to do something. Someone was going to get hurt. I tried a lower setting, but she continued to harp about her poor missing scientists. It’s her own fault I had to go so high. ”
“If that were true then why didn’t you turn off the programming the instant the scientists returned?”
“A mere oversight.” His tone is dismissive again.
“Bullshit! You completely destroyed any credibility she had with the other field managers when you allowed her to continue with that farce of a trial. We both know a small panel of field managers would have sufficed.
“My dear Dr. Wickerham, you’re pointing you’re energies in the wrong direction. I merely provided the rope, she made her own noose.”
“Then tell me, was it a mere oversight when you turned the boy’s programming off but left the girl’s on when their matches went missing? The girl was so inconsolable with grief I had to sedate her. I think it’s time for you to take care of all your oversights.” Dr. Wickerham must be talking about Brody and Kelly.
“Are you proposing that we simply end the program and allow our colony to descend into the chaos of high school angst and destroy any chance of orderly procreation?”
“It may be better to wean everyone off slowly,” Dr. Wickerham offers.
“My dear, it’s simply not an option.”
Dr. Wickerham’s voice is icy. “Then maybe I need to inform the council about some of your other activities, Mr. Chairman.”
“Are you threatening me?” The chairman made his question sound like the real threat.
“No, I’m just helping you make the right choice.” The doctor’s voice is shaking.
His voice is eerily calm. “Very well, I’ll wean everyone off the matchmaker program, but I’m warning you, any and all fallout from the change rests solely on you. I’m not getting involved in the mess this will lead to.” Footsteps stomp from the room, and a door slams in the distance. A lighter-sounding pair of footsteps follow. I don’t dare move or even breathe again until the footsteps are long faded.
Hearing my theories are correct feels very different from just thinking I’m right – it doesn’t make me feel any better. Jennifer is still dead, and Andi is lying near death in a hospital bed. An ache from deep within wells up and releases itself as an angry sob. I press my mouth into a pillow.
Chapter 22
I’m still hiding on my bed when Andi moans. I rush to her side. “Don’t try to move,” I warn before calling out, “She’s awake.”
Her eyes flutter open. She squints and covers her face with her right arm but then looks down at her left one and blinks.
I look down at her and say, “You had us all worried.”
She attempts to talk, but only a rush of air comes from her mouth. Briefly, her face freezes in a look of disbelief and shock, but then she coughs, gags, and starts to struggle.
“It’s okay. You’ve got a breathing tube in. Don’t try to talk.” I pat her arm and attempt to reassure her.
Her eyes are wide as she claws at my arm. She wants the tube out, now. She continues to gag and choke as she fights against it. If she had both hands free, she’d be pulling it out herself. I grasp her uninjured hand and forearm and pin her down for her own good, though it doesn’t make her piercing glare hurt any less. Finally, a doctor approaches the other side of her bed and busies herself around Andi’s head.