Freak of Nature - By Julia Crane Page 0,2

her unless it was necessary for testing.

“Almost done.” Lucas spoke to the nurse who waited off to the side, clutching her little basket filled with vials. A smile lit the pretty woman’s face, and her cheeks turned bright pink. Lucas seemed oblivious to the affect he had on women.

A couple of minutes later, Lucas pulled the pads off Kaitlyn’s head and clicked the machine off. There was no touching this time—thankfully.

The nurse swabbed Kaitlyn’s arm with a cotton ball that reeked of strong alcohol, careful to only touch the skin. Two shots were administered, and then her blood was drawn.

Kaitlyn felt nothing. A computer chip implanted in her brain overrode the nerves that told her she was experiencing pain.

Sometimes when she was locked in her room alone, she wondered what pain felt like. She couldn’t remember. They assured her it was a good thing that she couldn’t recall her past life, or the accident that had brought her there. Easy for them to say. It wasn’t their lives that were ripped away from them.

Once in a while, Kaitlyn had flashes of memories, sitting behind a piano, running in the woods, or floating in the water. She was always alone, but it was like watching someone else. She felt no more of a connection to those memories than she did to the plots of movies. Whatever life she had before was gone.

“Kaitlyn, I need you to come over here.” Lucas’s voice filled the room.

She didn’t tell the staff about the memories for fear that they would have them removed, just like she didn’t tell Lucas that he alone made her feel human.

Without a thought, Kaitlyn rose to her feet and walked towards Lucas, who stood beside the treadmill. The machine part of her obeyed before she had time to consciously acknowledge his command.

She stepped onto the treadmill and waited as he adjusted the settings.

“You know the drill.” He stepped back, writing on his ever present clipboard.

Kaitlyn settled into a steady rhythm, the sensation of her sneakers pounding on the rubber, relaxing. There was nothing to look at but lab equipment—wallboards covered in scrawled numbers, cabinets full-to-bursting with gadgets and notebooks. She watched the blinking red numbers of the treadmill slowly rise.

“I’m going to increase the speed,” Lucas told her, his hand blocking the numbers as he hit the ‘up’ arrow. “If you need me to stop, yell.”

Kaitlyn nodded, so he knew she comprehended. It was annoying, the way they talked to her like she was an idiot when they were the ones who put a computer in her brain. Although, she never gave them a reason to do otherwise.

She let her mind wander as they tried to push her to failure.

As she ran faster and faster, arms swinging, she thought of how they could take her heart and her memories, but a small part of her mind was still her own. Something they failed to calculate into their little experiments. All they discussed was her potential: how they could use her to their advantage. The logical side of her knew they’d never talk like that around her if they for one minute thought she could still think for herself.

It would have made her sick to her stomach. Only she couldn’t get sick. Her stomach was now nothing but titanium gears and who knew what else.

No one asked her opinion after the accident, when her body wasn’t salvageable and on the brink of death. Apparently, she’d opted to donate her body to science, though in hindsight, she couldn’t imagine why. IFICS had seen an opportunity, and they had taken it. Now Kaitlyn was left to pay the price for their greed. Over and over again.

“Sir, it’s reached maximum capacity,” Lucas said, clearly impressed.

“Very good.” A grin spread across Professor Adams’s face. “She continues to exceed expectations. Soon, she will be ready. Dr. Harrington will be pleased with the news.”

Chapter Two

Kaitlyn heard Quess plodding down the hall before she unlocked the door, and turned the doorknob. The poor girl had to spend her summers with her grandparents—Professor Adams and his wife. As punishment for some act of teenage belligerence, Quess had to clean this wing of the compound, which included Kaitlyn’s room. Not that she minded, because it gave her more time with Quess.

Kaitlyn clicked off the television and leaned back on her pillow, her legs crossed in front of her at the ankles. She had already seen the movie Munich several times. She really enjoyed the movie, but welcomed the interruption. Recently,