your ground, girl! Think! Think it through! Where did that come from? It popped into my head out of nowhere. Did my father used to say that?
I looked around at all the faces in the room. Everyone was looking back, waiting. I answered slowly, “My name…” That’s my problem! I don’t know who I am. I know nothing about me. I only know waking up in this bed.
Then it hit me. “What do you care what my name is? The truth is none of you here cares who I am. You only care about making Frankenstein live. None of you care who Frankenstein was before!” The look on my face glared “fuck you all.” I looked at Jane. I could tell that she recognized my expression.
But Dr. Ponytail wouldn’t stop shooting his mouth off. “Well, the issue is of no real consequence. We have done our work. I have revived you. We only need to monitor your healing progress now and assist with your recovery. With luck, everything will work out as I expect, and you will come to see the wisdom in our plan. So, ladies and gentlemen, may we continue—”
I cut him off, “I have a question, Doctor. Your nurse here…” I pointed to Chris. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.” I did forget it but continued looking at Dr. Philippe. “Last night, he told me there were no other survivors from the ship I was on. Is that true?”
“Yes, that’s true, miss.” Dr. Philippe continued, “You are the only one. That’s why we worked so hard to revive you.”
“Then I don’t follow something, Doctor. If that physician on board the rescue ship was so relentless, why didn’t he save anyone else? Or at least send others to you as well as me? Why was I the only one that survived?”
The good doctor’s answer was almost flawless. “My dear girl, I mean woman, to get to the point we are at today, you have had twenty-four-hour supervision by trained medical personnel for four months. That doesn’t speak to the expense of top surgical, biotechnical, and psychiatric experts this entire time. It would not be possible to spend that amount of resources on the entire crew of every attacked vessel coming into this galaxy. Your survival was an experiment. We simply could not conduct a countless number of experiments simultaneously.”
“But why me?” I asked as the room went silent.
“Miss, I suggest that you take that question up with whoever or whatever you hold to be your almighty creator.”
The room fell silent, and everyone was looking at me. I was getting livid and did not want to disappoint them. I was staring down at my bandaged arm, but my voice was firm. “Is that all you got? Do you expect me to believe that you are just a bunch of wonderful guys saving lives with cool toys? You won’t tell me the truth, will you? You won’t tell me what your real purpose is!”
Jane’s head jerked toward me. She understood me and looked straight at me. She gave me a subtle nod, and she reached and touched my hand. There was that connection again between us, and a voice in my head was saying to me, You go, girl.
I continued, “You turned me into an alien…with air-conditioning. I got so much gear in me I’m half robot and half alien. No, I’m a fucking telepathic robot.”
That even shut up the great doctor. All he could get out was “Dr. Dietrich?”
Jane stood and faced him. “Dr. Philippe, I had suggested many times that today’s conversation should best be handled in a private one-on-one session between our patient and myself. There is no need for a performance in this manner with all staff attending and others observing.” I could tell Jane struck a nerve.
Dr. Philippe began to fume and was ready to reply, but I cut them both off. “Excuse me!” I was getting even angrier. “I dislike being talked about like I’m not even in the room!” I was thinking about Jane’s comment about others observing, but I directed at the good doctor, “This is all very silly and misses a few points that I think are important.” Everyone in the room was now looking at me. “One, why did you do this to me? And please don’t say to save my life. I’m your fucking guinea pig. What’s the real reason for this experiment? And why me?”
My head was starting to hurt. “What do I owe you for all these built-in toys? These are close to being medical miracles. What do you want from me? What, will I have to do as payback?” I didn’t want to say it, but that thought frightened me a lot.
I couldn’t stop now. “And third, where the fuck did you get this gear? Please don’t tell me you invented it. Bullshit! These are military parts, right?” Then I looked straight at Dr. Philippe. “Do you think I’m supposed to bow and say thank you and kiss your feet? Guess again, asshole. You never even stopped to ask my permission. You transformed me into…into…I don’t know what. To you, I am your fucking guinea pig! And you won’t be honest about why you picked me!”
Dr. Philippe turned so many shades of purple I thought he would have a coronary. He looked at Chris. “Sedate her please; she’s getting delirious. She is not healed yet, and in her state of mind, she may damage herself. You must quiet her.”
I yelled back at him, “Go ahead sedate me, but you won’t quiet me forever! This ain’t over, asshole!”
When I looked at Chris, tears were forming from my real eye. He adjusted the IV. Inwardly, I wondered where my fight and anger came from. Who am I? That’s when I blacked out.
Chapter 3
Wildfire
I woke up during the night. The chime was ringing.
Can anybody explain to me why it is necessary for a monitor to tell me I’m awake? Hell, I know that! When I finally get out of this bed, I will rip that thing off the wall. No, actually, that’s not the first thing I’m going to do. First, I’ll tear that sedation IV off that rack. Hell, who am I kidding? I bet they have a room full of more equipment to replace these with.
The other nurse, Zoe, opened the door and crept in without making a sound. She stepped to the bed and looked at me. “You okay, honey? Do you need anything?” Before I could even answer, she continued in a weird kind of way. “Oh, you’re so cold. Are you running a temperature? Let me feel your forehead. Yes, you might need another blanket. Let me get it for you.” I didn’t understand what she was playing at, but she must have had a reason for this little show. She went to the wall across from me and did something. A panel slid open and revealed a small closet. I didn’t notice that before, but then again, I haven’t noticed much because people have been putting me to sleep a lot. She babbled as she walked into the closet, “I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere.” But then she sneaked out and looked up into the corner of the room to my right.
She hurried over beside me. “I have to talk fast, honey. There’s a camera and microphone up there in the corner. I turned it off, but someone will notice if I take too long.” She chuckled to herself. “Child, you set them at each other all afternoon. I tell you, ‘I told you so’ was flying everywhere, and Dr. Jane was leading the charge. I stayed out of it, didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire. But, ha, I loved it.
“When everyone was in here, there were two army generals watching the TV at the nurses’ station. They caught your performance, and man, oh, man, were they angry with Dr. Philippe. They were all ‘you told us that you had the situation under control.’ The way they saw things, girl, you were the one in control today, not Dr. Philippe. Then one general got real mad and was all ‘Doctor, are you aware of what’s at stake here?’”
She ended with “I don’t know what will happen, honey, but I’ll try to tell you when I hear something to pass on.”
Then she glanced up to the camera again and talked quicker, “Something else you need to know, sweetie. The name on your file is Wildfire. When they found you, there was a picture in your money belt. It shows a woman standing in front of a horse. The back had writing that said, ‘Happy birthday—Love, Mom and Wildfire.’”
I stared at the picture. A few thoughts flashed through my mind. Something was coming back to me. I started to cry.
Zoe